


It's hard to dance with a devil on your back

by gealach



Series: We shall burn [5]
Category: Dark Wolverine (Comics), Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealach/pseuds/gealach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Japan's ripe for the taking, and Sendai is as good a place as any to begin. It's not as if Daken has something else to do there, has he?<br/>While he plans and executes his takeover, though, he could find something else too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : this work is part of a series; as such, it deals especially with the aftermath of Part 2, "I'll come back to haunt you if I drown", but every work is referenced.
> 
>  **English isn't my first language** ; I hope you'll forgive my mistakes.
> 
>  **WARNING** The first chapter depicts the rape of a **minor**.

1.

“Regrets collect like old friends,  
Here to relive your darkest moments.  
I can see no way, I can see no way.  
And all of the ghouls come out to play.  
And every demon wants his pound of flesh,  
But I like to keep some things to myself.  
I like to keep my issues drawn;  
It's always darkest before the dawn.”

Florence + the Machine – _Shake it out_

 

 

Sendai had really changed over fifty years.

Oh, well. That was residual from the kid; _of course_ the city had changed, had gone through all the normal changes a city could go through over half a century. But the skyscrapers clashed with fresh memories of quiet hills, creating a contrast which was still a bit hard to get used to. The flashes from the kid were diminishing, but were still there every once in a while.

Have fifty years worth of memories back all at once and be functional at the same time was proving to be more difficult than he thought. Annoying, too.

He was still dissociating from the kid. It was dangerous, maybe, but how can you concile the behavior of a ten year old with yourself once the amnesia's over? He had all the kid's memories, they were his memories too, but sometimes he cringed at recalling something said or done by the kid, sometimes he asked himself whether he really had been like that when he had been ten. It was a strange experience: it was like having two parallel sets of memories, and comparing the first months spent with Romulus with the months spent at the school really put things in perspective. Who would have thought it took so little to change so much? Ah, not that he thought that Romulus had forced him towards a certain path like the Apocalypse brat had said; no, certain characteristics had stayed in the kid, and that had been enough to prove that he wasn't a construct, that he was his own man. He didn't regret the things he had done.

Walking Sendai's streets, Daken realized he had no idea where he had lived. It wasn't just that the city was much bigger now; it was that even with the kid's fresher memories, he couldn't pinpoint a single landmark. It had been on the plains, of that was sure; and the Hirose-gawa had flown near the house. That still left an area which was enormous. It didn't help that he had always avoided to come back to the city.

This was a fool's errand.

He had been to two cemeteries already, but it was entirely possible that he had passed the tombs without even noticing. What exactly was he doing? He didn't even know if they were here. For all he knew, they could have been taken and brought somewhere else. He wouldn't have put it past Romulus.

But he was set on doing this. He owed it to the kid.

No; he owed it to himself. It was only right that it would have ended where it had began; that it would have begun anew where it had ended. He had always been a man of strong gestures, after all.

Once again, he asked himself what had he said at the facility. Laura – finding her there had been both annoying and queerly comforting – had seemed to be walking on eggshells when he had woken up. But apparently he had only monologued about Romulus, without going into details about Logan and the things that had happened in 1977, the instincts Romulus had rooted in him, what had happened when he had left the school, so he had decided to let it go, for his own peace of mind at least. God knew what sappy self-deprecating things he had said.

Shaking his head, Daken reached the third cemetery. He remembered quite clearly blabbering about dramas and then having much too vivid flashes of Romulus' masterful manipulation in Herat, but thankfully it was all hazy from then on. Apparently the kid – the kid's thoughts – had slipped through. It wasn't surprising, nor was he surprised at _what_ had slipped. Had he said something more Laura would have insisted more fervently than she had, her quite obvious maternal instincts kicking in, so no worries on that, too.

He knew he had done the right thing at leaving.

Hell. The _right_ thing. It was such a strange concept. He shivered _still_ at the thoughts he had been having and the shiver itself was proof enough that something – what? – had changed within him. Really, this was ridicolous. No need to have an existential crisis. And yet – Was this what wanting to protect someone felt like? He was no stranger to possessiveness, but this concern in and of itself was – different.

He kept walking through the cemetery. Another failure; this was really a fool's errand –

He recognised Akihira's family name out of the corner of his eye and stopped dead on his tracks. He realised he hadn't really given much thought to this, thinking perhaps he would have never found anything, but as he checked quickly the headstones, names of Akihira's ancestors matching with his memories, he realised that now he had to actually do what he had come here for.

And that was – what?

And _there_ they were. His traitorous heart – residual from the kid, no doubt – skipped a beat.

He reached the two headstones and stood in front of them, hands in his pockets. Well. Here he was. Now. Now what?

He had never understood the need for this kind of thing, for people to go on a sorry trip down memory lane and dig up the past. People died, and that was all; people died, while he carried on untouched, and the only person he had cared about in his adult life had had a similar lifespan.

He realised he was rocking slightly on his heels, uncertain on what to do. He had thought this would have been easy, a piece of cake after Weapon X, after his confrontation with Logan, but there wasn't anything easy about confronting this kind of loss. Could he be as sloppy as he had ever been and call it loss of innocence? He had never been innocent, but there had been a time when simple things were enough even for him, when _he_ was enough, when everything was simple and normal. When he and Akihira and Natsumi had been a family. Then he had grown up and the servant boys had gotten nastier and the pheromones had showed up and all had went downhill.

Natsumi. Ah, Natsumi. Grimacing, he turned slightly towards her tomb, dealing with her easier for now. He knew what uncontrolled exposure to his pheromones did. He knew, on an intellectual level, that he had slowly driven her mad. That she had hated him not because of something he lacked or because she was a bitch, even if she _was_ , that was undeniable, but because when he was around she wasn't in control of herself and that had scared her, of course. He had childishly clung to his hate for her, and Romulus had taken great care to fuel it, twisting it, attaching it to his craving for his real mother.

Oh, he had worked on _all_ his weakest points exquisitely, carving what had already been there to a form of his liking.

He had worked on his fixation with Akihira – the very reason Daken had then pulled that ridicolous stunt with the Brotherhood, after all. He hadn't been in his right mind when he had concocted that plan, that much was clear, his thoughts clearer now that he had went through the amnesia. The Heat had fucked with his brain, had showed him things he had thought deeply buried; his death-and-revival from the bomb in New York had done the rest, and he had kept to himself and his thoughts for way too long after that. It had been ridicolous, and desperate, and ludicrous to say the least, but realising after years of telling himself lies that he would have never, _never_ rid himself of his fixation had thrown him off.

Romulus had worked on his fixation with Akihira, had twisted it and destroyed it and Daken would forever hate him for that. Had it ever crossed Romulus' damn mind that he could have had Daken wrapped around his little finger without burning him so? If he was honest with himself, Daken knew that had Romulus acted as a parent, without the sexual spin, he would have still fallen for his schemes like a baby, too desperate for acceptance to think. It would have been fake nonetheless, yes; that much was true. He would have never loved him. But it would have been different, healthier maybe.

But Romulus had wanted him damaged, had wanted him gullible, had only prepared the road for what he was already thinking of doing, entangle him with Logan.

Damn him. Damn him to hell. Here he was, in front of Akihira's tomb, and he was _soiling_ it with Romulus' presence, and Romulus still managed to fuck with his brain, the craving for his love a motioning force that engulfed and spinned and burned everything around him.

Akihira – had been a good father. Yes. He hadn't abandoned him. He had taken him into his home, a western bastard in post-war Japan, and when it had become clear that he was half-breed, not even _once_ had he lashed at him about it, not even once had he said something. He hadn't abandoned him. Even in his last moments, he hadn't stopped loving him. His suicide hadn't been a selfish act, but rather selfless. He could have taken him down for killing Natsumi, for killing their baby; he _should_ have done it. By all accounts, he should have. It would have been his right. He should have done it, he himself – Akihiro – Hiro had known that. He hadn't _failed_ him, he hadn't been _weak_ , he had – set him free.

Daken realised tears were streaming down his face, that he was sniffing hard in this buddhist cemetery, some kind of revelation coming to him. This easy propensity to tears since Hiro was starting to grate on his nerves. He half-snorted, half-huffed, drying his tears with a handkerchief.

When he was sufficiently calm, he realised there was someone in the vicinity. He half-turned, saw an old man looking at him, hands on a cane. As he looked at him, the man shook himself and began taking uncertain steps towards him.

Annoyed, Daken turned his attention to the tombs again, thrusting the handkerchief in his jacket's pocket. _Nosy old man._

“ _Forgive me, young man_ ,” said the man, his Japanese slow and clear, whether for his benefit – he did look western to eastern eyes, after all – or his old age. “ _Are you lost?_ ”

“ _No, I'm not. Thank you_.”

“ _Forgive me for insisting, but are you sure?_ ”

“ _Yes, I am_.”

“ _Perhaps you have mistaken this tomb for someone else's_ ,” said the man gently.

“ _No. No, I belong here_.” Daken cleared his throat. Belong. He almost grasped his chest.

The old man hesitated. He really was too nosy for his own good. “ _This family's tombs have been deserted for years_ ,” he explained, gentleness in his voice, “ _That's why I'm asking. Perhaps you've confused the kanji somehow? They can be difficult to understand._ ”

 _For a foreigner_ , he meant. Yes, he had taken him for a western-bred half-breed, or maybe even a gaijin. “ _I'm family_ ,” Daken said, equally quiet. He understood the truth of the words as he spoke them.

“ _This family's bloodline died out in the Fifties._ ”

Oh, of course he had to be approached by a scholar. Or maybe just an old man who spent way too much time among the tombs, studying the deads and their stories.

“ _Blood doesn't make a family. They're my grandparents_ ,” the lie came easily; he figured the old man wouldn't have let this go till he had an answer.

The old man's breath caught in his throat, his hands gripping his cane. Daken furrowed his brows at the reaction. The man continued to stand beside him, silent for a while. “ _Are you Akihiro's son?_ ”

Shocked, Daken whipped on his heels towards the man, looking, truly looking at him for the first time. Bald head, wrinkles all over his face, slightly hunched. He had taken him for being older than he was; he could have easily been sixty. _He_ knows _me_ , he thought, staring at him.

“ _Yes_ ,” he managed to say, “ _I'm Akihiro's son_.”

The man's face twisted, his head turned towards the tombs again. “ _We never knew what happened to him. We thought he was dead._ ”

“ _He survived_.”

The old man fidgetted with his cane. _Old man? He's –_ Daken had never felt self-conscious about his own age before. But standing here beside him was someone who had probably known him, talked with him.

There hadn't been many kids his age around. That narrowed the man's identity down to a few that Daken would have preferred not to stand beside to.

“ _How is he, then?_ ”

“ _He died_ ,” Daken said simply. “ _A few days ago_.” The utterance passed from lie to truth in a matter of seconds, enclosing itself as he closed his lips. _Am I coming full circle, then?_

“ _Oh. I'm sorry for your loss._ ” The man didn't look at him. “ _Did he ask you to come here?_ ”

“ _Something like that. He never got to._ ”

“ _That's a beautiful thing you're doing for your father, then_.”

Daken almost laughed hysterically there and then. “ _I'm trying. Did you know him?_ ” Now he really was curious about what the man could have had to say.

The man's hands gripped his cane again. _Ah-ah, jiji, I caught you. Have you been very bad, then?_

“ _I – knew him, yes_.” The man's shoulders hunched, his head lowered. “ _Children are cruel, you know_.”

“ _Oh, I know it well enough_.” Did the man think he could just confess like that to a complete stranger and wash himself off of his sins? Daken felt annoyance at his frail body, annoyance at his own thoughts. He felt vicious. “ _Are you Junichiro?_ ” Oh, now Hiro's fresher memories could really come in handy. “ _No? Hachiro, then?_ ” The man stiffened, wide eyes drawn to him. “ _Aoi, perhaps?_ ” No, he had killed Aoi, chocked the bully to death. “ _Nobu?_ ”

“ _Did he remember us, our names? I never meant for any of it, I – I would have never wanted to affect his life this way –_ ”

“ _Nevertheless, you did_ ,” he said. He didn't tell the old man that their names had never been that powerful, that they hadn't been that important, that he only remembered them because of Hiro. They had been utter _bastards_.

“ _I'm Hachiro_ ,” said the old man quietly.

He didn't fucking care who the hell he was. Hachiro. The fat one, yes. He scoffed.

“ _Please allow me to apologise to your father's memory –_ ”

“ _Why?_ ” He snarled. “ _So that you feel better with yourself, jiji? I don't think so._ ”

The old man stiffened at the change in his speech pattern, at his disrespect. “ _Age leads to regrets. You'll understand eventually, young man._ ”

Fucking – this would have been so damn funny if only he had been in the right mind to fuck with him. As it were, he was getting far too heated and for what? What did he care about the old man? “ _Regrets? What do you regret? Being cruel to a little boy who only wanted to be friend with you and didn't understand what he was doing wrong?_ ”

“ _Yes –_ ”

“ _Ah. Cruelty, jiji? That wasn't cruelty, that was stupidity. Cruelty is a different thing entirely. You weren't cruel. Don't think so_ highly _of yourself. You were weak._ ” The man was obviously annoyed at his disrespect, but was probably blaming it on his supposed western upbringing, or even on grief. And yet he was listening, hands on the cane, eyes fixated on the tombs. “ _He was a living, daily reminder of the bombing of this city, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You hated him for what he represented, for the things your_ parents _said. You were too young and stupid to know what you were doing._ ” The old man was shaking and Daken suddenly felt so tired, so very tired. This wasn't funny, this was exhausting. Was he even talking to the old man? “ _Don't wallow in self-hatred over something you had no control over. Don't think he would have forgiven you had you stumbled on your knees and begged forgiveness. The truth? He would have laughed at you and kicked you._ ”

“ _It seems to me he was a cruel man. A sad little man, with an empty life_.”

“ _Oh, you have no idea_.”

“ _He had you, though. He found a semblance of happiness, did he not? With your mother?_ ”

Daken snorted. “ _My mother died in childbirth._ ”

“ _I'm sorry. But nevertheless,_ _I'm glad he had someone for a while. We all need someone, no matter what we say_.”

About to answer with some biting jibe, he froze at the thought of little hands squeezing his. _No!_ Daken stiffened, _I'm not Romulus. I'm not!_ He needed to get out of here. He didn't want to think about _that_ . _I left. I left._ He turned on his heels, a last lingering look on Akihira's tomb, and fled.

“ _I've upset you. I'm sorry –_ ”

He turned towards the old man. “ _You haven't. I have things to do. Goodbye, jiji._ ” He was looking at him as if he knew everything about him, as if he understood something Daken hadn't yet. Seething, he fled out of the cemetery, reached a road, walked, walked, walked.

_Think about something else. Something else._

He wasn't Romulus!

He wasn't, because he had left, left without ruining it all. Cut all the ties, escaped like a coward, because he was too afraid of staying and trying, trying and ruining it all. Because everything was a game, everything could have been used, and he would have ruined it somehow, and he knew it.

He had been thinking about how to spin the situation to his advantage already, worked a few scenarios in his head and they had been all so interesting. So useful.

And they had all entailed taking advantage of the boy. Not even sexually; god, _no_ . Somehow the thought had made his stomach _churn_. No, but befriending him, making him think that he was his friend, that he was so grateful for him helping the kid –

And then he had thought that he didn't _want_ to. That it wasn't _right_ . That he... _cared_ about the boy? That the boy hadn't _truly_ wanted anything in return, that he had helped him out of the damn goodness of his heart, and that would have normally made him laugh and use it, but not this time; he had been so damn _grateful_ to see he was fine and well, and he had thought that he didn't want to harm him, that he wasn't Romulus, that he didn't _want_ to act like Romulus.

The realisation had made him flee like a coward; he had renounced to a golden opportunity only to protect the boy from _himself_. Was there something more ridicolous? He had told himself that he was leaving only to avoid talking to Logan, but he had been lying to himself and he knew it.

_Quentin. What the hell have you done to me?_

And then, well, he had ended up confronting Logan anyway. He had stopped and _listened_ and _talked_ and given up. Given up _everything_ . Logan _knew_ now. Logan knew, and it had been liberating. He felt as if floating now, as if something heavy had been lifted off him.

It was night already. Had he spent so much time walking the city? Where was he? He looked around; he seemed to be in the outskirts, dressed far too incongrously for it with his two-piece. He should have returned to the hotel and work on his plan. With Victor in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands, this would have been relatively easy indeed. Oh, _oh_ , how had it been satisfying to shove everything down his throat at the Jean Grey School. After the stress he had subjected him to, Victor had really brought it upon himself.

But Daken wasn't finished yet. He had something to build, after all, and what better place than this?

Shoving it up Victor's ass was a nice bonus, of course. He and Mystique had taken Madripoor from him while he was recovering, but who cared about that stupid island anyway? Plus, taking Madripoor had seemed such a good idea at the time, but it had always smelled like something to spite Logan and he didn't want that signature on his work anymore.

Ah, no. He had different plans. He would –

Quiet crying in the distance. Who cared? He shrugged and kept walking.

The street wasn't packed, but there _were_ a few people around. Was no one going to do anything?

Traitorous thoughts. _Ah, stop it_. He should really stop projecting, that was counterproductive.

The crying was louder. Was he closer?

No; it wasn't his heightened senses anymore. It was faint but clearly audible.

_And that is your first lesson, my beautiful boy._

_No one cares. No one –_

_Stop it._ He clenched his jaw. A residual from the kid, obviously. The kid had been forced to relive a good many of Daken's most dire memories. _Stop it._ It was only natural that this would distress him now. Even at the school, seeing that man above the little Apocalypse had made him seethe.

This had nothing to do with him.

It was a girl, and the noises were unmistakable. She was being raped.

_Stop it!_

Who the hell cared anyway? It wasn't as if he had _ever_ cared about something like that before. He had killed kids before, tortured them. He had walked past atrocities, unconcerned by them. He had soaked himself in blood.

 _I never did this_ _to_ kids _, though._ _And I know perfectly well_ why.

He was no hero, he had no interest in this.

Why the hell was no one doing anything?

He realised he had stopped in the middle of the road. Passerbies kept walking, quick, heads lowered. Where the hell was he?

This was _not_ of his concern –

– Romulus dragging him in a dark alley. _This will do; I'll show you the extent to which no one cares._

 _But I understood that perfectly well, Romulus_ , he had said, reminiscing their talk not a hour prior in the hills above the city. It had been sunset back then, the sun on his face had been so warm, and he had been so childishly happy that Romulus had found him after his murdering Natsumi, after Akihira's suicide. Nothing had prepared him for what had been about to come.

 _Master_ , Romulus had shoved him against a wall, _From now on you'll call me master._

Oh, he had been so stupid. _Master? But –_

 _You still have this naive idea that you're different. And you are, but not in this. You have so much potential it's a pity for you not to exploit it due to silly fantasies_. Romulus had trailed his nails over his face and Daken had stilled, terrified for the first time. He was naive, but his newfound sense of smell hadn't lied to him, no more than the expression on Romulus' face could have done. _I'll take good care of you, but you'll have to allow me to do it, you'll have to trust me._ Romulus had been so close. So close. _You'll have to let go of everything. And you'll become so much more. So much more._

 _I want to be more._ So bold. He had been like this, Hiro hadn't been so different. He had sensed this was a one-time-only opportunity. He hadn't known whether he was willing to pay the price. But he had been too young to understand what he would have to pay, hadn't he? _I trust you._

_I know. But to transcend you'll have to understand that no one cares. Not even me, boy._

Romulus had –

Oh. _Oh_. This was ridiculous. He had no time for this, for the nausea hitting him still, so many years after it.

Daken had screamed. No one had come, no one –

The girl was crying.

 _Oh, shove it. Shove it!_ Gritting his teeth, Daken reached the alley.

It was so dark even he had to wait a moment for his eyes to see something. The animal was all over her, thrusting and keeping her down. Daken felt bile surging up his throat, fury burning in his veins.

Reach him in a few quick steps, kill him while he was still inside the girl?

That would have traumatised her.

Did he care about that?

Yes, surprisingly.

Make him remove himself from the girl first, then. _Gently_.

He took a step in their direction. “Let her go,” he said in English, with a tremulous voice.

The man stopped, threw an annoyed glance at him from over his shoulder. He seemed a thug. Daken faked a shiver, took a step backwards, and repeated, sending a puff of pheromones, “Let her go!”

 _Oh, come on. Am I not a far more interesting prize? American and alone and rich and so blindly stupid. A wannabe hero. Remove yourself from the girl. Now._ _Now_. He sent another puff of pheromones, conveying supposed terror.

“Fuck off.”

“Let her go or I call the police!” _Get out of her, you bastard. Give me some space to work_. He took a step towards them again. The girl was crying. _What the fuck am I doing? This is like a bad Z-movie. This is ridiculous_. “I'm calling the police!”

The thug slid out of the girl and went to his knees. “Fucking stupid gaijin,” he snorted. “Goodbye.” He took a gun out of nowhere and pointed it at him, but he had already given Daken what he wanted: Daken was on him as he fired, kicked his face, shoved him on the wall, slit his throat with a claw. The man slid down the wall. Daken turned towards the girl.

She was covering herself, staring at him with wide eyes. She could be twelve, maybe.

He stayed where he was, as far away from her as possible, and crouched low, sending soothing pheromones. What was he supposed to say now?

He hadn't expected her to speak.

“Stupid gaijin. Run.” She clutched her clothes and muttered, in Japanese, quick and urgent and low, “ _Get out of here before he wakes up. He'll kill you. Stupid, stupid gaijin._ ” She turned to English again, staring at him. She had a swollen lip. “Run. He kill you.”

Wasn't this interesting. Here she was, almost naked, a kid, just raped, and she was worrying about him? So resilient.

“ _He's dead_ ,” he said in Japanese, and she started and clutched her clothes and shuffled backwards. “ _He won't hurt anyone_.”

And he hadn't, truly, he _hadn't_ expected her next words. “ _Oh, you've done your daily good deed!_ ” She practically snarled, covering herself, “ _So heroic of you. Thank you!_ ” She was terrified. “ _You've killed him? What are you, a killer with a heart of gold? What shall I do to thank you?_ ” She was dripping sarcasm, but she was scared. He realised he didn't know what to do. At the school he had overwhelmed the little Apocalypse with soothing pheromones, but this didn't seem to be working now.

Well, of course. This girl had _been_ raped, whereas the little Apocalypse had avoided that.

He should try to comfort her, but he _knew_ that being touched after it was out of the question. He wasn't _fit_ to do this. Why was he still here? The thug was dead, he could have gone away, why wasn't he going away? He wasn't even _good_ with kids.

“ _Go back to your boss! Do you know what you've done?_ ” She was in hysterics, but she was speaking quietly, harsh syllables low in tone. “ _Oh, you're in trouble. Big trouble. Don't you know who this is? Was. Oh_.” The girl managed to pull up her panties. “ _And why? So that you could feel better with yourself?_ ” She laughed hysterically, little giggles. She kept covering herself and cowering. “ _I can't believe this. They'll hunt you down and kill you. Go away, I won't tell anyone, I'm sure they've seen you but it's so dark... Go away!_ ”

He hadn't expected something like that. He stared at her. _Why are you doing this? Why are you behaving like this?_ It wasn't normal behavior, was it? He had been a sobbing mess the first time.

He realised he had moved a hand in her direction only when she shuddered and backed away.

“ _Don't_ touch _me! What do you want? You want a prize? Go away!_ ”

“ _Stop it_ ,” came out of his mouth, harsher than intended. He was so confused. Aftercare. That was what she needed, aftercare. Right.

She flinched. “ _Go away, go away – I'm not your ticket to redemption, asshole!_ ”

“ _Shut up_ ,” he snapped. She flinched again. No, no, _no_ , he had to use a quieter voice, calm her down. “ _I'm not going to hurt you._ ”

“ _Whatever! Who do you think you are? You have no idea what you've done. You're doomed. Go away, oh fearsome hero_.”

Oh, he _liked_ her. “ _You're strong_ ,” he said quietly, “ _But you're trying too hard. Don't show that strenght. If a stranger sees you as weak, use it._ ”

“ _And he gives advice!_ ” The girl snorted, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was trying not to show she was sobbing.

“ _Stop it_ ,” he repeated, “ _I won't hurt you. Can I bring you home?_ ”

She hugged herself, probably not wanting to give her address away. “ _I have no home_.”

Oh. He had been so focused on her that he hadn't really smelled her, looked at her. She wore rags, she smelled of street. A street urchin. A nobody.

“ _All right. Your refuge, then. Where do you sleep?_ ”

“ _You think I'd tell you? I'm grateful, really, but go away. It's for the best. I'll manage –_ ”

“ _No_ ,” he said.

“ _They'll hunt you down and kill you._ ”

“ _Or maybe I'll kill them, mh?_ ” He cocked his head, pushed the soothing pheromones.

“ _You're crazy_.”

“ _I've been told that. A common misconception_.” He pouted. Ah, she was giggling in real amusement, finally. It was just a hysterical reaction, but at least it meant she was lowering her guard a little. “ _Now. You don't want to tell me where you sleep; shall I bring you to a hospital?_ ” Maybe he should have said that first.

“ _Why? It's not like I'm pregnant_.” She pressed her thighs firmly together. Oh, she was prepubescent still? That fucking _animal_. He should have killed him more painfully.

“ _You need a hospital_.” Or at least he guessed so. Free food, a bed, people tending to her.

“ _No. They'll shove me somewhere and I'll never see the sun again_.”

“ _Well you can't stay_ here.” Not with her rapist _dead_. It appeared he wasn't just a nobody and she would have to face consequences.

“ _Why do you care?_ ” She asked, hugging herself still. She was a kid and she was bleeding and she was terrified. He was projecting. He _knew_ he was projecting. The darkness, the alley, her young age, his recent musings about Akihira and Romulus – He should stop, right now, right this _second_ , leave her here and go away –

Dealing with that question meant dealing with the fact that he didn't know what to say. Because he had wanted to? There was no refined reasoning behind it, he had acted on instinct.

Like he had done at the Jean Grey School. He had opened his eyes and seen Quentin and all those kids and – there had been Victor there, Victor had been intent on something that wouldn't have been pretty.

Quentin had tried to _comfort_ him. Without insomuch as a _sliver_ of concern for himself, Victor looming near them, and Quentin had been about to _chant a fucking tanka_.

And then he had told himself he had wanted to make Victor pay for trying and fucking him over, but that wasn't true. At all. He had just thought that he had wanted to help those stupid kids.

And it hadn't been a residual from Hiro either, even if he had told himself that, too. He had told himself that he was doing it to repay his debt to Quentin, then. But that hadn't been true, either.

He – he didn't know.

That was fucking annoying. He had to understand why he was doing these things. There was something at the back of his mind, but he didn't _know_. He needed to _understand_. He _wasn't_ a slave to his instincts.

“ _Mister?_ ”

“ _Because I want to_ ,” he said, a passe-partout to questions for now. Logan hadn't questioned it, hadn't insisted. Oh, he had had his own ideas, probably. “ _So. What can I do for you?_ ”

He saw it her eyes then, he saw the flicker of a decision, heard the thought forming in her mind, heard her utter it. _Ah, no. No, kid. No way._

But she seemed intent on surprising him still. “ _Do you need a guide?_ ”

“ _A guide?_ ” He had been sure she was about to ask to be allowed to trail behind him. Well, this _was_ a variation of it, but she was trying to bargain, too. She had quick thinking even after what had just happened to her. She was resourceful, that much was clear. “ _And why would I need a guide?_ ”

She held her chin high, this girl who had just been through hell and back, and stared at him. “ _You're new here. Your accent isn't from here, and you didn't know this place is off-limits. You aren't worried about being punished by your boss because you have no boss, and you aren't worried about stepping over the feet of someone powerful because you are powerful on your own. You're an assassin and you have things to do here, but it's not a job, or you wouldn't dally around. You came to the city unprepared because you wouldn't have come here dressed like this if you had. You dress well, so you're rich_.” There was a challenge in her eyes. Had he lowered his guard so much that he was so easy to read or was she a rare pearl? Either way, she had him officially intrigued: she wanted his help, but on her own terms. He waited. “ _You've come here in the middle of a mess. A lot of different groups are scrambling for power. Something must have happened to the higher ups._ ” Well, something had; Victor was out of the picture and would have been for a long time. He had taken control in Japan a while ago, but apparently his grip hadn't been that stable if his absence was enough for little men in every city to try and seize power.

“ _And?_ ” He prompted her.

“ _I can tell you who is who and where people gather. I can tell you who is important and who only thinks they are_.”

“ _Tempting. Who are you, that you know all these things?_ ”

“ _Me? I'm just a street urchin_ ,” she flashed a smile. Ah, no. She was an informant for one of the groups, and the rape had been a punishment from the people she worked for, or a warning from another group. And now she wanted to use her savior. _If a stranger sees you as weak, use it_ , indeed. She had played him and was showing her cards now.

She was all alone and so young. _Stop. Projecting._ She was smart. And he had put her in a dangerous situation. Didn't he owe her?

“ _And how shall I pay you for your services?_ ”

She placed her hands on her lap. There was blood on her clothes. Was this even the first time it happened to her? She was far too casual about it; this spoke of habit. “ _I want clothes, and food, and protection. I want to learn how to fight. How to defend myself_.”

She was selling herself to a man she didn't know, someone who could hurt her. Didn't she see that?

_I'm not Romulus, though._

Damn. Was he really thinking about this?

No. No. He wasn't Logan, with his evergrowing army of stray little girls. And he had other things to do, he had to stay focused.

“ _You don't know me. You don't know what could I do to you. I could hurt you. What makes you think I'm to be trusted? What makes you think I'm different from your boss, from this man?_ ” He tilted his head towards the thug. “ _I've hurt kids. I've killed kids. Not so long ago, in fact._ ” Shatter her hopes and get out of here. Catch her and bring her to the nearest hospital and get the fuck out of Sendai, find another city and work from there.

“ _I'm not that naive. I don't trust anyone, certainly not someone I've just met_.” So shrewd. Oh, he liked her. “ _But you cared about what was happening to me when no one had, so you would be a better boss than most. I'd prefer to risk my life out of the streets than dying alone in an alley. And I know a lot of important things, I would be useful. I'm not asking for pity, I work hard._ ”

Of course, she could be lying just to convince him. But she could also have useful intel.

She would slow him down.

She was bargaining in such a situation.

She was a kid. Kids were annoying.

She was a kid. She was alone.

Too many complications. He had always been alone.

He couldn't just leave her alone after what had happened!

Why, _why_ was he caring about something like that?

He needed to investigate the situation. He could have used this to understand what was happening to him.

And she needed a place to stay. She needed to be taken care of.

He could just teach her a few things to survive, then leave her on her own. That wasn't so difficult.

_Keep telling yourself that._

The universe was _laughing_ at him.

“ _All right. Let's go, then._ ”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

2.

“And I've been a fool and I've been blind:  
I can never leave the past behind.  
I can see no way, I can see no way.  
I'm always dragging that horse around.  
Our love is pastured, such a mournful sound.  
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground.  
So I like to keep my issues drawn.  
But it's always darkest before the dawn.”

Florence + the Machine – _Shake it out_

 

 

Another day, another assassination attempt.

Today had been slow; only two so far. The Yakuza had stopped sending _real_ professionals a few days before, of course; they kept losing them, and couldn't afford to survive for long with no assassins available. Too bad they _wouldn't_ survive regardless. It was almost cute how they were scrambling.

So today had been slow, relatively quiet, and now Daken was enjoying a well-deserved meal in one of his favourite restaurants.

The takeover was being smooth, barring a few incidents; Victor had left a chain of power very organised but with some weak spots, and in doing so had left something that was remarkably easy to track down and win over. It wouldn't take so much now; the pieces were set, he just had to wait for his final gamble, for the hand to be shown.

Oh, it would be so satisfying to see Victor again, shove this down his throat. Him and his supposed “control” over East Asia had been a sham. The poor thing was still held in some S.H.I.E.L.D. prison.

He felt a presence at the door and raised his head just in time to see a stocky, quite fat woman attempting to reach the private room. European, from the looks of her, but quite obviously the third assassin of the day, with her unmemorable looks. She wasn't even trying to be subtle, talking in a hushed tone with his men at the door. Perhaps she wanted to skip the bit where he beat the shit out of her and go straight to the job offer.

She looked at him for a moment and permitted him to catch her scent. _Oh._ Daken let a smirk show on his face. _Of course._ There was something strange in her scent, an alien quality; he recognised it a few seconds later. _Interesting._

Cocking his head in greeting, he told his men to let her pass.

She walked slowly into the room, assessing him as he was assessing her. He wondered why she had bothered with such a disguise, when she could have approached him in any other way.

She reached his table and he tilted his head to look at her, mask firmly in place, an appreciative smirk tugging at the angle of his lips.

“Mystique. Love the _look_.” He cocked an eyebrow at the large dress, at her plain face.

She trailed her fingers over the back of a chair, looking down at him. “Love your _hair_ ,” she replied. She pursued her lips. “New look?”

“Oh, you know. It was time for a change.”

He hadn't changed that much the hairstyle, it was just an experiment. One he liked, though, the hair hanging from a side, partially covering his face.

He motioned to the table. “Will you join me? The food is passable.”

“You've got company,” her gaze trailed over the other plate, the lamb almost untouched.

“A company that _pales_ in your presence,” he assured her.

She laughed quietly. “You charming liar.” She sat across from him, hands on the table. Her body was disquieting to look at: he didn't understand why she had chosen something so remarkably unattractive.

“Shall I have something brought for you?”

“Ah, no. Thank you.” Mystique folded her hands. “But please, do eat. Don't let me stop you.”

“I think I'll wait.” He set the cutlery on the table and reached for his napkin. “It's truly a pleasure to see you, Mystique.” She cocked her head at his sudden moment of honesty, perhaps trying to determine its genuineness. He wasn't lying. Mystique fascinated him, a truly remarkable artist of deception. It was so rare to find someone so similar to him.

But now he wondered why had she reached out to him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Well, Daken, it's become increasingly difficult to find you, these days.”

“Is it? I'm playing hard to get, perhaps.” He set the napkin on the table.

“Are you?” She laced her fingers together. “I tried to reach you in your usual places, but you disappeared. All your contacts are _gone_. I don't understand why would you –”

“That's what _hard to get_ means. Why were you looking for me?”

She didn't answer right away, gazing at him instead. “You've _changed_ ,” she said suddenly, brows furrowed.

“That's the new haircut, darling.”

“No, there's something –”

“I'll admit we parted ways rather turbulently,” he interrupted her, cocking his head and crossing his legs. “It was quite a show, mh? I didn't get to kiss you goodbye.”

She laughed, in a strangled, strange way. This body was grotesque, but he figured she had chosen it because it hid well what she was hiding. She _had_ to know he had noticed, though.

“That was a mess,” she said. “Truly a mess. We got out of there with nothing. Not you, though.” She stared at him with hard eyes. “Am I right?”

“Oh, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You had a plan.”

“Had I? I thought I was your puppet leader. I thought I was so stupid to fall for everything Victor was saying. I even _died_ , woe me.”

“Don't try that with me. I knew you were up to something. But what?”

“Who knows.” Daken let a smile surface for a moment. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I was _curious_.” She was trailing her fingers over the table. “And sometimes it's better for Victor to be played by someone other than me. It teaches him a little humility.”

He laughed. “Victor and _humility?_ Oh, my, Mystique.”

She didn't laugh, grimacing instead. “Daken. You have to know I didn't condone what he was doing to you –”

“What he was doing to me? And what was he doing?” Daken relaxed on the chair. If she wanted to continue with the concerned mother figure play, he would have lost his respect for her.

She stared at him, at a loss of words for a moment. “I heard things.”

“Oh, my.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Ominous.”

“He told me things. And I heard things when you two were together.”

“Nothing I couldn't handle.”

But he was lying, on a level, and she knew he was lying: she had seen him that day, that damn day in which he had been dangerously close to have a breakdown. She seemed about to talk, but he didn't want to hear what she had to say.

“I knew what I was doing, Mystique. I was ready and willing and knew what that would have entailed.”

She bit her lip then, like she had that day. For some reason it irritated him and calmed him at the same time. “It wasn't right.”

“You didn't seem so appalled when you took Madripoor from me.”

“That was _different_ ,” she said forcefully. “That was business.”

“I know,” he cocked his head, “No hard feelings over that. I heard you're getting things done in there. Are you truly upset over something _Victor_ did? I assure you it was nothing.”

“... because you had a plan. What was so important to let him –”

“– shatter my dignity and self-respect? Treat me as a child and a whore at the same time?”

“ _Yes_.”

“You wouldn't understand.” Daken looked away, overwhelmed for a second, unable to look at her and bear the false pity he hadn't managed to avoid to see. True, his plan hadn't worked as he had thought it would have, but it had led to a chain of events that had borne a result satisfying on its own right, so he didn't regret what he had done. “What's done done, Mystique. Let us not talk about that anymore. Although I have to say this, he's severely _lacking_ when he has sex. How do you suffer him?”

She shook her head, a flash of something in her eyes that vanished after a moment, and let her gaze wander the room. “You're taking away his control over Japan,” she said quietly.

“Ah, that I am.” He took a sip from his glass. “So you're here to defend your lover's business?”

“Not at all,” she returned her gaze to him. “I'll let you boys scramble over this thing on your own. I've more important things to do with my time.”

“And yet you're here. Why? To what do I owe the _pleasure_ , Mystique?”

She didn't answer right away, instead playing with a fork. He almost expected her to try and stab him with it or try something similar. She was nervous; that was strange. Maybe it was due to the hormones.

“I'm pregnant,” she said suddenly, not what he had expected her to say given the lenghts she had went to to hide the signs on her body.

“I know. I smelled it right away. I believe congratulations are in order?” Daken tilted his glass in her direction.

“I'm seven months along.”

“... and?” Why was she telling him? He did some quick maths. “Oh! Victor's the father?” Seven months earlier they had kidnapped the little Apocalypse. So much had happened, it was eerie to think so little time had passed. “That's unexpected, to say the least.” Why was she giving him such a tasty weapon? “He doesn't strike me as the fatherly type.” Daken swirled the wine in his glass. “And he's in prison, isn't he?”

Mystique was looking at him with the strangest expression, hands set on the table. “Yes,” she exhaled quietly, “He is.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Ok. That's a fantastic news, Mystique. I wouldn't let him near the kid, I'm just saying. And I'd love to share parenting stories later, but now tell me why are you here.” He took a sip.

“There's no easy way for this, so I'll be blunt,” Mystique had that sorrowful look again.

He set the glass on the table, perplexed. “Do you need help, Mystique? Is something the matter? Some scheme you had with Victor and you need someone else for?”

“Daken –” Mystique inhaled. “I'm sorry, but it's yours.”

Now, he prized himself on his self-control, but this was a whole new level of ridicolous. He resorted to his most impenetrable mask, the one that led clearly his audience to know he was trying not to show anything, but he hadn't a more refined response ready. “ _What_ is mine?”

“The baby.”

He laughed. What else he should have done? It was clearly a ruse, a rather simplistic way to throw him off. What was her game, what was she getting at?

But she wasn't joining in the laughter, wasn't speaking, she was just looking at him. She was biting her lip and shaking slightly her head. She seemed completely honest.

Too bad she was an artist of deception.

He stopped laughing abruptly. “I don't think so. I have no time and no _intention_ to play, Mystique.”

She sighed, reaching across the table. Her hand stopped a few inches from his. “Daken. We had sex, remember?”

How could he have forgotten that damnedest day? Her fake concern, her pushing all his buttons effortlessly when he had been no match for her. How dared she bring it up now to play a game? “ _Once_ ,” he snapped, “And it was thoroughly _embarassing_.”

“It wasn't embarassing. You needed –” the bitch tried to touch his hand; he retreated it from the table in a haste.

“ _Don't._ ” He was fuming. How dared she, how _dared_ she –

“All right. I won't talk about it. But we _had_ sex.”

“ _Once,_ ” he repeated, “Whereas you and Victor were at it like rabbits. The odds aren't in my favor.” Daken tried to reaffirm control of the situation, set again his hands on the table. This was utterly ridicolous; what was her game? “What _possessed_ you to think your _parasite_ is mine?”

She jerked as if he had slapped her, her cheeks flushing with an ugly shade. Ah, this body she had chosen really lacked finesse. “Yes, we had sex just once,” she hissed, “ _That's_ why the thought hadn't even crossed my mind. We thought it was Victor's. _That's_ why we decided to keep it –”

“ _We?_ As in, you and _him?_ Talking about babies? So _domestic_. So _romantic_. What's next in store for dear old Victor? Changing diapers? _Breastfeeding?_ ” How _dared_ she bring up something like that, bring up those horrifying days? Knowing what he was doing hadn't prepared him to the toll it would have taken, to the stress he would have willingly subjected himself to. Some days he had had to constantly remind himself _what_ he was doing, _why_ he was doing it, he had had to force himself not to _whine_ and _submit_ under Victor's weight over him. Oh, he foamed still at the indignity of calling Victor _master_. And she dared come here and bring this up to play a fucking _game_ , she dared insinuate that moment of _weakness_ had produced a little _bastard_ –

“– and had I known _earlier_ , Daken, rest assured I would have rid myself of it.”

_A bitch in heat._

“Yes,” he snapped, covering Romulus' voice, “because it's a thing you do all the time, isn't it?”

_Such good little bastards you would give birth to._

“Are you slut shaming me, child? _You?_ I'm certainly not the only person in this room to use her body!”

_A bitch in heat. Oh my. Had I known sooner –_

– _put you to breed. Such good little bastards you would give birth to._

_Such good little bastards you would give birth to._

It was his turn to jerk back, feeling the blood drain from his face. No, no, he had rid himself of that day – _After all you're such a good little bitch, aren't you?_

 _I'm not, I'm_ not –

_Such good little bastards you would give birth to._

“I can't believe this. You're behaving like a child.” She shook her head, disappointment on her face. “I thought you were a _man_ , but perhaps it was a mistake on my part, I mistook you for something else –”

– _but the apple never falls far from the tree, after all_ – he couldn't hear her anymore, bile surging up, up, up, he had rid himself of that day, he _had_ , why hadn't it worked? He gagged, a hand coming up to press on his mouth. He would _not_ throw up in front of Mystique. He wouldn't.

She had widened her eyes and was staring at him with a puzzled look which soon turned into comprehension. And then the pity, again, the damn pity of that day. How dared she, how _dared_ she, with her fake concern? He hated that look, it made him seethe.

She reached across the table for his hand.

“Don't _touch_ me!” Damn him, but his voice broke on the second word. She stopped then, her hand coming to rest mere inches from his.

“It seems I misunderstood you. I'm sorry. I'm willing to... overlook your nice words,” she said, oh so quietly. _Oh, Mystique, as always you don't understand a thing._

_Which is fine. That's my business._

Her fingers moved slightly, but she didn't touch him. “It's perfectly normal to be scared about this, Daken.” She was quite clearly moving the conversation to a safer land.

“I'm not _scared_ ,” he scoffed.

“Paternity can be scary. I have other children, you know.” There was a brief, not-quite-there pang in her voice. Yes, of course. Two in the X-men, one of which dead; the other one, the one she had had with Victor, the useless human, murdered. Some of Romulus' sources had claimed she had killed the last one herself.

“I'm not scared of _paternity_ , Mystique.”At her knowing, amused look, he lost it. This wasn't a game, this was serious. “Do you remember the Red Right Hand?”

Her head snapped up. “Yes, of _course_.”

He lowered his hand from his mouth, his stomach settled now, and set it on the table. He clasped his hands together. “Do you remember the Mongrels?”

She pursued her lips in distaste. She had been disgusted by the Red Right Hand's plan. “I haven't met them, but _yes_. You told me about them.”

“They were the misfits. They were the ones with powers so ridicolous they weren't a threat. They were grotesque. They were mildly entertaining, William was even interesting. I _liked_ them.” He hadn't told this to Romulus, but of course he had known. Romulus always knew everything. “And they were part of _one_ of the thousand plans I had set in motion over the years to get revenge on Logan. Over something, Mystique, that had never even happened, you know? I don't know if you know what I'm talking about. Victor knew; and it's oh so _juicy_ a story.”

“I... don't know what you're talking about.” She was waiting for him to make his point.

He didn't know if he could believe her, but would have certainly pretended to. “Then you'll never know. Anyway,” he crossed his legs, “Turns out the thing I blamed on Logan was to blame on someone else. Imagine, years and years of planning now pointless. Imagine, the Mongrels could have even lived. It's a nice ending, isn't it?” Of all the things Logan had done, of all their later interactions, even if he now looked at him in a slightly, oh, _ever_ so slightly different way, this had been the lowest blow. Logan's ignorance hadn't softened it. “Unfortunately Logan decided to take my revenge away from me.”

This Mystique understood, of course. This was visceral and private and intimate, this was a thing she _knew_ . After all, she _had_ initially joined the Red Right Hand in their pursue of vengeance. She had gotten cold feet when he had told her their methods, but she _had_ joined.

“So I revised all my plans, I got over them once, twice, a good number of times, and I chose the one which was more likely to hurt him. _This one._ And I gave the Mongrels' names to the Red Right Hand. Don't make that face,” he added, because she was looking at him in a slightly disturbed way, as if he was a disgusting insect. “It wasn't nice, but he had brought it upon himself. You can't understand what he took from me. I admit he payed with interests,” he shrugged, “I'm calling it even. Logan and I have reached an... understanding of sorts.”

“He doesn't know what you've done, does he?”

“I honestly don't know. Nor do I care. The subject never came up.” He caught his glass again and took a sip. “As for the rest, because _there is_ a rest. Logan fucks everything that moves.” _Even in_ this _your father's an animal. You have no idea of the little bastards who crawl the earth, Daken. They're too many, and they have to be eradicated._ “ _They_ were the ones I had let live; do you know what happened to the _others?_ My brothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews? What happened to them, over the course of the years?”

Mystique cocked her head to the side. “You killed them.”

“I did.” He set the glass on the table again.

“And your point is?” She had already understood, of course.

“Those who share our genetic traits are dangerous to us, and can be _used_ against us. As weapons. They can become better than us and replace us. They can be tortured and molded. We have a high pain tolerance. We can be played with.” He realised he was bringing Laura and Logan in his speech, as if they were a single subject, a single entity. Well. In this they were. “Governments are willing to pay for us. I was almost brought in a facility myself, months ago. I was in no shape to fight back.” When his memories had come back, he had been able to recall and, most importantly, to _understand_ the words in English that Steve Rogers and his lackeys had said on the plane, the words wich Hiro hadn't understood. If Logan hadn't taken the kid in – “And our _children_. They can be taken from us and used, they can be lied to and brought up to hate us, or they can be used by someone else to hurt us. Like mongrels.” Like he had done, like Romulus had done. “Children are liabilities.”

“And you think this is his fate,” she placed a hand over her belly. The motion gave him vertigo.

“Yes. Assuming it's mine.” Daken looked away, gazed at the door. Pretty words, reasonable words, but he wasn't following his own advice, was he? Maiko wasn't his, but the Yakuza had treated her as if she _were_ , and he himself had confirmed it when he had reacted to the assassin which had gone straight for _her_. Keeping her around was one thing, teaching her to survive was another, but dropping everything and jumping in her defense? He had reacted on _instinct_.

And it drove him mad.

She was taking way too much time to return. The restaurant was reasonably safe, he had many men inside, but it was still a gamble to have her go around, with what he was waiting to happen. They had gone over what she would have had to do, just in case, but she wasn't ready to defend herself yet.

“Your date?” Mystique asked. He shook himself and looked at her.

“Yes.”

“Don't worry, I don't think she will be _jealous_.” She motioned to her unattractive body.

“Oh, I think she will.”

She snorted. “Liar.”

 _She will._ She would be, if this ridicolous complication turned out to be true. After the assassination attempt she had been so clingy –

 

* * *

 

“You know,” she had said one day, head a bit lowered, as she was trying to get the right fork and knife to eat the fish. “I would like to change my name. I don't want my old one anymore. It is a dead girl.”

He had understood the urge, of course. “Yes? And what name do you want to use?”

She had fidgetted with her glass. “Maiko.”

“Maiko. Why?”

“What you are teaching me. It is like a dance. I like dance.”

“You like _to_ dance,” he had corrected her, “Alternatively, you like danc _ing._ ”

“I like _to_ dance. And maiko are artists. I am a maiko too, because I'm training. You are training me. Maiko are –”

“I know what maiko are.”

“Well, I like maiko. Maiko are beautiful. I use to watch young maiko –”

“You _used_ to watch –”

“I _used_ to watch maiko running after geisha when I lived in Kyoto.”

Her time in Kyoto was a subject not to be touched, he had learned. “ _Dancing child_. It has quite a connotation, too. Are you sure?”

“What you are teaching me is like a dance,” she repeated.

“It looks like a dance because you are lithe and that's the better fighting style for you.”

She had cocked her head to the side, a mannerism she had taken from him already. “Light?”

“No. Lithe. _Lithe_.” He had written it down. “Slender. Graceful in build.” He had seen her smile out of the corner of his eye. “Capable of moving and bending with great ease.” He had showed her the word; she had squinted her eyes at it.

“Lied,” she had said, and winced.

“No. That's...?”

“It is past participle of verb _lie_ ,” she had recited. “To tell lies, or to put oneself orizontally.”

“Very good. Whereas _this?_ Will you try again?”

She had taken the napkin on which he had written the word. “Light. Lied. Light. Lied,” she had huffed. “ _Chikushou!_ ”

“Lithe. Come on. _Lithe_.”

“I can't –!”

“Of course you can. Dentals are easy. And that's why you are avoiding all those _there_ and _them_ and _they_ and _the_ and _that_ , am I correct?”

“Dentals are _difficult._ ”

“Difficult? We haven't gotten to the uvulars yet. Or the glottals. Oh, the _glottals_.” He had sighed. “How will you get the glottals right if you can't manage the simple dentals?” She had made an outraged face and gripped the napkin. Oh, she was so easy to rile up.

“Lied. Lied. Lied. Lied. Lied. Lied. Lithe. Lie–oh! I said it!” She had looked at him. “I did! Did you hear me? I did!”

“ _Yes_ , you did. See? Simple.”

“You tricked me!”

“Did I?” He had smirked and winked at her. She was so quick and stubborn. “But let's see if you say it _again._ ”

“Lied – ah, chikushou – lied. Lithe. Lithe, lithe, lithe, lithe – ah!”

“ _Good_. Oh, and the fork is wrong.”

She had looked down and grasped another one. “This?” This time she had uttered the sound perfectly, with a self-satisfied smile.

“ _Very_ good.”

They had eaten in silence for a while, but she had kept fidgetting till she had lost it. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Is Daken your chosen name?” He had looked up at her. “You know, like me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She was getting a little too personal; this had been just the last of her enquiries.

She had fidgetted with her napkin. “Uh, you asked why Maiko.” She had shrugged. “So. Why Daken?” She must have had that question on her mind since he had told her his name. “I mean, why would you want to be called – uh – uh.” She had cocked her head to the side; he had waited for her to remind how to ask. “Please, can you tell me how do you say daken in English?”

“Mongrel.”

“Mongrel. Uh.” She had taken a bite and chewed slowly. “Why?”

“Because I have many fathers.”

“You don't know who your otousan is?” She had sniffed.

“Yes. I do.” He had kept eating, uncertain on what the conversation would have entailed now. This had been the most personal she had ever gotten; he hadn't known how to deal with it. He hadn't known how to deal with a lot of things by then, chiefly why he was keeping her around. By then he had no reason whatsoever to, her intel being on Sendai only, her presence sending the message that it was possible to hit him through her, and yet here she was. If nothing else, he rationalised, after the attack leaving her behind would have meant her certain death.

“And why you said you have many fathers then?” She had smiled shyly. “I'm using the dentals!”

“Yes, very good.” He had realised he was fidgetting his own napkin. “Three fathers. I have three. One out of choice, one out of necessity, one out of nature. One loved me, one used me, one... freed me, I suppose.”

“You don't like the last one.”

“Perceptive.”

“I know because you wriggled your nose.”

“Mmm.”

“Who's your real otousan?”

“The first one.” He hadn't even missed a beat.

“And the one in the middle?”

“The one in the middle is _dead_.” He had attacked the fish with ferocity, the kid jumping on her seat.

“I don't remember my otousan,” she had said quietly, after a while. “He died when I was little. Okaasan brought us in Sendai. She died too.” He hadn't known what to say to that. Ordinary people were asking for comfort when they said these things; he knew how to approach it, but she was a kid.

“I'm sorry,” he had said. So empty and _pointless_.

She had opened her mouth, inhaled, and closed it again. She had done it a second time; and then a third one. That had alarmed him. She must have noticed he had frozen slightly – she was so perceptive – because then she had said lightly, “So, Maiko. What do you think? Do you like it?”

“It is you who must like it.” He should have approached the subject there and then. Take it out of her mind. When had she begun having these thoughts?

“You're _silly_. Of course I like it, I chose it! Do _you_ like it?”

“I like it.”

“Then I'm Maiko!” She had grinned as if he had told her she was a descendant of Amateratsu –

 

* * *

 

“... Daken?” And Mystique was looking at him, puzzled. “You blacked out. Your date must be amazing.”

This was dangerous. He had to have Mystique gone before the kid came back. He didn't want to risk her to see Maiko.

“Nothing of the sort.”

“Ah, you had the softest expression on your face,” she teased. That was frankly alarming. _She'll use her._

“Mystique. Let's return to the matter at hand. That.” He pointed at her belly. “You still haven't told me how on earth could you think that's mine. You said you had been sure it's Victor's.”

“That's long, and complicated, and a bit absurd.”

“Speak.”

She took a deep breath. “A while ago, Hank McCoy brought here, to the present, some of the X-men of the past. The original five. This brought to, some time later, two different groups to come from the future: the X-men and the Brotherhood. They fought; the X-men returned home, some of the members of the Brotherhood stayed here; they approached us, and one of them is my son –”

“Raze,” he interrupted her, and she started. “Isn't it?”

“How –?”

“Oh, Victor told me.”

“When did you see Victor? He would have told me, we thought you were dead!” She put her hands on the table.

“Oh, you see, he couldn't have managed to tell you. I met him just before S.H.I.E.L.D. took him. At the Jean Grey School. You could say he's in prison thanks to me?” He cocked his head to the side and enjoyed quite thoroughly the look of shock and outrage on her face. Oh, beautiful. She had asked for it: he didn't resent her for Madripoor, he had said; but just a tiny, tiny bit, yes he _did_. Oh, he had managed to take her off guard. He sighed and took the bottle. “Wine?”

“ _You_ were the wild card?”

“Oh, I do so _love_ to be the wild card. Don't you?” He poured her a glass of wine.

She took it with a shaking hand. “Do you have any _idea_ of what you've done?”

“I saved two kids?”

“Why on _earth_ did you help the X-men?” She took a sip, staring at him.

“I _like_ to be unpredictable. Keeps things spicy, don't you think? Why did I do it? Oh, who knows.” He shrugged and relaxed on the chair. She had the most shocked expression on her face, truly delightful. “Back on topic. Raze: what about my little brother? Did he tell you that one's mine?”

“No. He didn't. He told me his _own_ birth date.”

He sat straight on the chair, her implication clear.

“He will be born two months from now. I'm carrying him right _now_.” She put a hand on her belly again. “He has claws. He can't be Victor's. _That's_ how I know it's yours.”

“Logan –”

“Yes, I _had_ sex with him, but more than a year ago, and I _wasn't_ pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm quite sure. He would have been born by now.”

“Victor told me he's _Logan's_.” He recalled Victor's quick explanations at the school. “My brother, not my _offspring_.”

“Victor –” Mystique grimaced. “Victor has no idea. Raze told me _during_ the attack on the school. He had told us he was Logan's. His teammates seemed to think that, too –”

“Did he tell you he's mine, or did he tell you only this thing? His birth date?”

“Only that. I think he was trying to gauge my reaction. He waited for Victor to be gone because he knew what would have happened had he been present; he had told us he was Logan's, Victor was delighted at seeing him so intent on Logan's misery, but had he known that he was in my belly _now_ – that _this_ child isn't his –” she grimaced.

“Couldn't he be lying?”

“On what? On his birth date? Why would he?”

“Do you know anything at all about him? How do you know he's _yours?_ ”

Mystique grimaced. “Yes, the thought crossed my mind, of course: he's a shapeshifter. But Victor said he smelled like me.”

“A shapeshifter? He could grow his claws on purpose. I've seen you do it. He could be Victor's anyway.”

“I know what you're doing, _really_ , but Victor said he smelled of _runt litter_. He didn't question his saying he was Logan's and he _would_ have, had he smelled his own scent.”

“Then he _is_ Logan's.”

“The birth date –”

“He could be lying.”

“Why _would_ he?” She repeated, exasperated.

He knew he was digging and searching for loopholes, but he wasn't going to take responsibility for this kid unless he was a hundred percent sure it was his. This was utterly ridicolous, this wasn't _happening_. “There could be many reasons. He _is_ lying on something. Why say he was Logan's if he isn't? You said his teammates think so, too. _You_ know he can't be Logan's if the dates coincide, so either he's lying on the date, or he's lying on who his father is. The question is why. And you said he didn't mention me?”

She hesitated. “No, he didn't.”

“He _did._ ” He motioned for her to speak. “Go on. What did he say?”

“ _I_ mentioned you – offhand – some days after he told me. I still thought you dead at the time, and I thought that maybe _I_ had brought him up thinking he was Logan's to use _Logan_. I mentioned he had a brother in this time, you, and that you had died recently. And he said –” she grimaced.

“What? Mystique, what did he say?”

“He said that he knew you, and that you were dead for good.” She cocked her head. “Nothing else. Now, barring the fact that that would have been the perfect moment to admit you're his father... you are quite alive, and if he knew that already since he's from the future, that either means that he was lying or that you are dead in his future.”

That was ludicrous. He came from the future, yes, but how could she trust him like that? Was it her motherly side speaking?

But this _wasn't_ ludicrous, was it? His healing factor wasn't how it had always been. That thrice-damned drug. Thrice-damned Roston, thrice-damned him for addicting himself, only because he managed to see his mother amidst the chaos of the Heat.

He shrugged, sending the thought away. Worrying about what _could_ be coming years from now was counterproductive. “So what's _sure_ is that he lied on _something._ ”

“He said _I'm_ dead. One of the things he told me and Victor to convince us to help him and his Brotherhood –” she brought her fingers to her lips. “He said Victor was dead, too. He called him _uncle_ Victor.”

“He played the pity card.”

“His grief seemed genuine.”

“Mystique.” Daken cocked an eyebrow. “He's _your_ son. I'm sure he didn't inherit only your _good looks_.”

“And if he's yours, he didn't inherit only _your_ good looks either.” Mystique seemed pensive. “Why, though?”

“Victor mentioned a war between humans and mutants. What do you know about that?”

Mystique cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you didn't care about mutant politics.”

“I don't.” Those skirmishes had never interested him, nor Romulus, for that matter. The power Romulus had held had come from other sources, from being in the shadows. The final goal hadn't ever been equality for all. “But it's the key to understand your boy. What do him and his teammates want, exactly? Why are they here?”

“Why _he_ is here, actually. He's the only one remained. We managed to avoid capture only because he was monitoring S.H.I.E.L.D.'s feed. You caused us quite a problem, Daken.” She was still asking herself why he had helped the X-men. “We attacked the Jean Grey School because they claimed two of the students would have caused _something_ , but according to them, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Other things happened – _will_ happen – and they've been unclear about it. They didn't want to change too much by _telling_ too much. I only know one or more of the Original Five are involved in something that will be violent. And some of the X-men, too.”

“The students were Apocalypse Jr. and Quire.” Quentin would have apparently become the host of the Phonenix Force, the little Apocalypse was a given.

“Yes. They turned to that because we couldn't find the kids from the past: their original intent was to simply send the original five home. But they're all passable of doing something terrible. I don't know the specifics. I insisted, it would be useful information: even if I can't do anything now I still can use it years from now. I'm used to such things.”

“Everyone's passable of doing something terrible. No one is innocent. This crusade over children over something they _could_ do is ridicolous. Over _politics_ ,” he scoffed. “No child of mine would be _that_ stupid.”

Mystique snorted softly. “I think you're overestimating yourself. And are you accepting he could be yours?”

“I guess we'll know two months from now, won't we?” He checked his fingernails. “Mystique. If this Raze is mine and yet truly thinks Logan's his father, that means you told him so. You will tell him so. You know that perfectly well.” He looked at her. She didn't acknowledge his words, but of course she was listening. “ _Why_ are you telling me, then?”

“I don't know why I'll tell him so, Daken. I don't even know _if_ I'll tell him that, or if he's lying. You said so yourself. I just thought you had to know.”

“To protect him from Victor, in case you're not around.”

She closed her eyes. “ _Yes_.” It had the finality of defeat. It was strange to see _Mystique_ so vulnerable. He wondered how much of it was real and how much was for _his_ benefit, to move him more. She knew he wasn't easily moved. But a child of his? There was something animalistic and primeval about the instincts of a parent. He despised such things. And yet. Protection. He had experienced that urge, hadn't he? At the school, of all places. Such a strange place and time to have a paradigm shift.

But that hadn't been parental at _all_. It had been a strange blend of conflicting instincts, triggered by Quentin, probably. He had been looking at him with such worry in his eyes, and he hadn't been feigning anything – Sometimes Daken really wondered what would have he done had he laid eyes on someone else upon regaining his memories.

Why lie to himself? He knew that he probably would have ended up helping the damn kids anyway.

Then all such thoughts were wiped from his mind, because he saw Maiko at the door. He cursed inwardly, keeping his best mask firmly in place, as she entered the room and side-stepped at seeing Mystique, who turned slightly to look.

He signalled Maiko to get out, but she didn't see or didn't heed him, coming towards him in a hurry. Mystique turned, eyebrows cocked up, and followed the kid's march with her gaze.

 _Out_ , he signalled, _out. Danger._ This wasn't happening. He should have led Mystique away earlier; Maiko would have found the room empty, she would have pouted, but she would have stayed put, she would have waited for him, she would have been _safe._

And then Maiko reached him and threw her arms around his waist.

“Otousan!” She exclaimed, and hid her face against his side. He _froze_ , a hand twitching on the table, and heard Mystique's sound of surprise.

Had she _really_ called him that?

_Oh! Oh. You clever, clever girl._

Too bad it could have worked on anyone but Mystique.

Maiko was trembling and hugging him tightly. She seemed upset; had something happened?

He put a hand on his leg and signalled in quick succession. _Danger. Quiet. Wait. Diversion. Out._ “Quick thinking,” he praised her, eyes steely hard on Mystique, _daring_ her to do anything. Mystique was clearly taken aback, but he could already see calculation in her eyes. It was what they _did_. It was in their _blood_. Seek weakness and exploit. Why was he thinking of Maiko as a weakness was a question he would _have_ to face, _eventually_. “Unfortunately, my _friend_ here knows I'm not.”

“Aww, you're in _denial?_ Cute!” Maiko's voice was _changing_. Mystique's eyes glowed yellow for a second; she had blanched. Maiko was getting _bigger_ ; her arms longer, the hair shortened almost to nothing as she – he – it was still a female, a young androgynous woman, tall and slender as she removed her arms from him, as she straightened up, a grin on her face, but this was a shapeshifter, this was –

He was on his feet before he could register what he was doing, grabbing her forearms and pinning her to the table, slashing through her wrists with his wrist claws. Mystique said something, but he didn't hear her, blood burning hot in his veins.

“ _Where is she?_ ” He growled.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Next:_ She made her lips shiver like a child. “Do you prefer father? Hey, isn't this the most awkward first meeting, like, _ever_ between father and child?”
> 
>  **Raze Darkhölme** Needless to say, this Raze is going to be a bit different from the one in the comics; as a concept, I began working on him when we had only seen him in _Battle of the Atom_ , and I worked him into this verse according to those appearences only. I'll try to keep the general demeanor, but it would be quite safer to say it's another individual entirely – the background is completely different, for instance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A friendly reminder:** Raze Darkholme isn't the same as in the comics, as I began this series when his background hadn't yet been revealed. With that in mind, I present to you without much furter ado the new chapter :)

3.

“And I am done with my graceless heart,  
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart.  
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn:  
It's always darkest before the dawn.  
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back,  
And given half the chance would I take any of it back?  
It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone.”

Florence + the Machine – _Shake it out_

 

 

The little fucker had the nerve to look frightened.

“Where is she?” Daken repeated, twisting his claws through her wrists and to the table. She hissed in pain. Oh, he had no time to worry about what he was doing.

“Daken.” Mystique's voice, cold, a warning in her tone. He ignored her.

“ _Where?_ ” Daken twisted again.

“I didn't – she's fine! Jeez!” The young woman – man – wasn't Raze a man? – had paled. “The bathroom! She's in the bathroom, the ladies' bathroom, on the right, the third door!”

“Well? Haven't you heard?” Daken snapped his head to his men at the door. Kazuro was waiting for an order. “Go there, _now!_ ” They disappeared in a hurry.

“As if I would _ever_ –” the woman protested and made as if to move away. He twisted his claws.

“And _you_ are staying here till she's here.” Her blood was soaking the table. Was it his own blood? No, no time to think about that now. “Pray you aren't lying.” Had she _hurt_ her?

“Daken, release my son. Now.” Mystique was on her feet, a gun in her hand, pointed at him.

The woman shook slightly her head. “Don't worry, mother, I'm a grown up. And I fucked up. Hey, I fuck up a lot.” She grinned at Daken. “Just know I'm _letting_ you keep me pinned.”

Daken scoffed.

The woman's grin went wider as something suddenly encircled and _squeezed_ Daken's waist. He froze, noticing it was a sort of tail that came from the back of the woman. “Like I said, I'm _letting_ you. Let's keep this civil, otousan. Sorry I upset you.” The strange appendage weakened its hold on him. “Should have imagined, but I wanted –” she bit her lip.

“To piss me off?” She had called him otousan. Was she mocking him?

“No. Just – nevermind.” She bit her lip again, her eyes soft for a second. “I swear Maiko's safe.”

She knew her name. Did this mean – no. “Excuse me if I don't believe you.”

“Awww, otousan, you shatter my heart.”

“Stop calling me that.”

She made her lips shiver like a child. “Do you prefer father? Hey, isn't this the most awkward first meeting, like, _ever_ between father and child?”

“It certainly doesn't beat mine.”

The woman grinned. “I know! That was a freaking work of art, by the way! I appreciate good theatrics!”

Daken furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about?”

“You gutting Logan? Hey, freaking genius! Symbolical and all that.”

The casuality with which she was talking about something only he and Logan knew about was eerie. To say it had been symbolical, even, she would have had to know that he had done it because at the time he had thought Logan had gutted his mother. Who had told her? Had _he?_

“Raze.” Mystique's voice was quiet. “Would you care to explain?”

“Yes, I would like that too.” Daken kept his hands on the woman's wrists, kept the claws inside them. She had short red hair and a pale, freckled face. Why had he turned into a woman? Was he really his son? The scent was familiar, it had that quality he had only ever smelled on himself, on Laura and Logan and his siblings. But that didn't mean anything. “Start with the fact that you're supposed to be my brother.”

“Well, that was just my way to spice things up a bit.” She shrugged, “You should have seen Logan's face when I stabbed him. Oh, and the _hurt_ in his eyes when I said I was his _son_.” Her eyes were glistening and she grinned in a feral, dangerous way. She was angry with Logan about something, that much was clear.

“Why lie to _me?_ ” Mystique kept her gun trained on Daken. “I'm your _mother_. You knew the lie wouldn't have survived when you told me the birth date.”

“I wasn't sure on what you knew yet. Hey, things are so difficult with time travel. I knew otousan was presumed dead in this time, I didn't know the specifics, so –”

“So you played safe,” Daken said.

The woman hummed appreciatively. “You do get me so well, otousan.”

That word was making his stomach turn upside down. Was she doing it on purpose?

“So when I saw that your mysterious and important trip entailed coming to Japan, I knew you were coming here to see him.” She shrugged again. “And I followed you.”

“How did you know I was in Japan if you said you didn't know the _specifics?_ ” Daken questioned.

“I believe the appropriate response would be _spoilers_ ,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“ _Spoilers_ ,” he repeated, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, yes. You don't want me to tell you everything, do you?”

“Given you've already said I'm _dead_ , I'd say everything else is a minor thing.”

She started and looked quickly at Mystique, then returned her gaze to him. “She told you.”

“Of course I did,” Mystique kept her finger on the trigger. “We were just wondering what you have been lying about, Raze. Are we really dead in your time? Or were you just trying to convince us to help you? What about this supposed terrible drama?”

“The future is _hell_ ,” she said, voice of steel and burning eyes. “And yes, you're dead. Both of you.”

“How?”

“I can't.”

“You can't...?” Mystique snorted. “Given you've come here to change the future, I'd say saving your parents would be a given.”

“I _tried_ , ok? I – failed miserably.” she shook her head. “It wasn't even what we came here for. You think none of us had wanted to change our own past? We all had something we would have wanted gone from our lives, we all had traumas and dead parents and siblings and lovers. We came here for one thing and one thing only: send the Original Five home. Play with the rest of the time stream wasn't an option.”

She seemed utterly miserable. What was it like for her, really, to see them alive, her father – _maybe_ , it wasn't sure yet – pinning her to a table? She had said they were dead. He couldn't speak for Mystique, but she _had_ survived for so long, after all; as for him, at the back of his mind, Daken was already spinning a few scenarios, the death a sham, a way for him to retreat into the shadows and bide his time for something, maybe; but had it been the case, would he have left his own son – _maybe, maybe, maybe_ – in the dark about it?

Of course, this was just her _word._

“You're _alone_ now. You have no way to come back,” Mystique said softly, “Except for the time machine in the X-men's hands. Tell me everything. I can change the future with you. If a war is coming...”

“No. Beast was _adamant_. Change too much and we create an alternate timeline and it's all for _nothing_.”

“But you'd save _this_ reality,” snapped Mystique. “If the future of mutantkind is in danger, you have to tell me.”

“You can't do anything. You'll die because of me.” The woman had donned an ivory mask, a defense mechanism much like his own. “And you.” She trained a dead gaze on Daken. “You'll die because of politics.”

Daken laughed. “Really? That's the best you came up with? Now I _know_ you're lying.”

“Yes, it's ironic really, that you died because of that.” Raze shook her head, voice flat. “Fucking unbelievable.”

“Exactly. Unbelievable. I care not for politics. I never have.”

“Ah, but what if they threaten what you hold most dear? What if the love of your life _asks_ you to?”

Daken froze at the ridiculous words. Did she really think he was that gullible to believe in something so preposterous? “You're piling up bullshit after bullshit.”

“Just because _now_ you think you are worth nothing, father, it doesn't mean –”

“Stop _lying_.” Daken snapped. He was _sick_ of this idiocy. “What's your game? Why did you attack the Jean Grey School if your only purpose was to send back in time a bunch of kids? You never said anything about killing, you said you weren't supposed to change anything, and yet you tried to kill two kids?”

“They were getting desperate,” said Mystique. Raze had paled, her freckles dark on her face.

“How do you know that?”

“I know because I was there. I know because I shattered your plan to pieces. Now you'll tell me what Apocalypse and Quentin – Quire will do in the future that is so terrible to try to kill them when they're just children.”

Raze had widened her eyes as he spoke.

“You were _there?_ ”

“Yes.”

“ _You_ saved them?”

“Yes.”

“You! Of course it was _you_ – oh. Oh.” Raze made a sound which seemed both a snort and a hiccup. “Ah.” Her shoulders shook; she threw her head backwards and began laughing hysterically, her arms shaking, causing his own claws, which were stuck to the table, to draw more blood from her wrists. “Are you fucking kidding me. You mean we – we –” she snorted again, tears of mirth at the corners of her eyes, and her laughter intensified. She seemed slightly touched. Daken exchanged a quick glance with Mystique, which was as taken aback as him, but was keeping her weapon trained on him, always the professional. Of course, he would have thought less of her had she lowered her guard.

“Raze?” Mystique said softly.

“This is freaking _amazing_ –” she bent down, trying to catch her breath. “Of course, of _course_ , time streams converging – and alternate realities my _ass_. Beast was so sure – he died for nothing – and Jeannie – it was all – for nothing –” She raised her head, still sniggering, eyes wide and slightly mad. “We shall burn, _everything_ shall burn, and _we_ caused it!”

“Now calm down and try to make sense –” Mystique said.

“No, no, it does make sense, it _does_ , don't you see? We came here to change the past, but lo and behold, _I_ caused the exact thing I wanted to avoid! Ah! So that means that our coming here was _never_ going to work.” She seemed to be sobering, perhaps the true impact of what she was saying coming to her. If something like that had happened to him, Daken mused, if a plan of his had backfired so spectacularly, he would have gone mad with rage. “Nothing changed because nothing would have ever changed because nothing had changed!”

“You're not making any sense,” Mystique said, “I've changed what was about to come, many times –”

“Did you? Or did you follow transcriptions? Uh?” Raze was looking at her mother with a glint in her eyes. He didn't know what they were talking about. “You never had a way to know whether you had truly _changed_ something. Changing the past is impossible. You will cause what you don't want to be. Oh. Oh.” Her knees almost gave way under her but she kept herself straight propping on the table.

Mystique had exhaled softly, some thought clearly spinning in her head, making the hand with which she was holding the gun shake slightly.

“Are you implying that if there hadn't been an attack on the school –” Daken said slowly, and Raze looked at him again, “– those kids wouldn't have turned out to be what they'll become?”

“Of course not, at least I don't think so, that's preposterous, but _other_ things – oh. So many things, so many _threads_.” She bit her lip. “A butterfly shaking its wings. I can't. I can't change anything. I see now. Oh.” She snorted. “And if we hadn't insisted on bringing them home, if we hadn't scared them shitless, he wouldn't have – fuck. A fucking _pointless_ trip to the past.” She shook her head, her gaze on Daken. “Fucking unbelievable – I can't save you –”

She was on the verge of _crying_ hysterically, now. The thought that she was upset about not being able to save _him_ and not, say, Mystique was eerie, disturbingly shocking. Was it a ruse or was her supposed affection real? He didn't even know if she was really _his_. He found himself pushing on her soothing pheromones, at least to calm her a bit.

“Don't you _dare_ try that shit with me,” Raze snapped. Had she _sensed_ the pheromones before them having an effect? That was new. She then sniffed hard. “At least you were happy.”

The sentence struck him like a death sentence, its significance too strange and far detached to emotionally charge a response of any kind and yet so final. A motion of raging disobedience, too deeply ingrained in him from Romulus' betrayal, gave him a vicious willingness to prove her wrong. And yet – didn't he deserve something? Hadn't he given up _enough_ already? He was wholer than he had ever been. He – he needed to sit down and think.

As if on cue his men returned, and Maiko wasn't with them.

Focusing on this, pissed at himself for _believing_ even for a second the little schemer, Daken twisted again his claws into Raze's wrists. “ _Well?_ ”

“No – I swear! Have you gotten to the right bathroom? I only locked her door!”

“There was a locked door in the bathroom she indicated,” said Kazuro, “But the child wasn't there.”

“Daken, who are we talking about?” Mystique was clearly calculating in her head. He was giving away how far he was willing to go to have the child safe and, damn him, discovering it himself at the same time.

“No one of your concern, Mystique.”

“It _is_ if you're threatening my son –”

“I'm _letting_ him, it's all right, he's right, but I swear I didn't –”

“Where is she, then? She's not disappeared into thin air –”

“I swear I didn't touch her –”

“Why would I believe you?”

“Because I would _never_ harm her!” Raze snapped, “Come _on_ , do you smell a lie on me?”

She didn't smell of lie, her words implied she knew Maiko from her future, and he didn't want to think about what that _entailed_. She didn't smell of lie, but then again that didn't prove anything, she was a shapeshifter and it was possible she was capable of altering her  scent, if she was his it was even possible that she could _manipulate_ pheromones, after all she had sensed when he had tried to use them on her. She didn't smell of lie, but another scent was faintly becoming nearer and stronger, and judging from her puzzled expression Raze was smelling it too, and the smell was of blood, specifically Maiko's. His stomach churned as he turned his head, trying to discern where was it coming from. “You would never harm her, mh?”

“I swear –”

“Shut _up_ ,” he snapped, as the scent was suddenly so near she could have been in the same room, and then the panel covering the air duct in the room fell on the pavement with a clang, Maiko's feet dangling from the little space. Her face emerged from the shadows next; she wore a satisfied grin. Grin which disappeared as soon as she saw their frozen tableau, and she retreated quickly into the air duct again. At least she had always quick thinking.

“Are you all right?” He called.

“Yes! Guess this wasn't a test then?” Her voice echoed in the small space.

Raze snorted. Looking at her, Daken realised with a start she was a male now, a young, very masculine man with a hint of beard. He had kept the forearms and hands feminine, though. He had also removed the tail from Daken. Raze raised his eyebrows at him. “I'd forgotten she was like this. Could you free me?”

Daken kept his claws unsheathed. “You've _hurt_ her,” he hissed.

“I haven't.”

“Maiko, are you bleeding?”

Raze snorted again; what was so funny he didn't honestly want to know. It seemed he had mood swings, or perhaps he was too straightforward in his deceptions, jumping from an extreme to the other too quickly. But if what he had been saying was real, he probably was on an emotional rollercaster right now; a bit of hysterics was to be expected.

“Uh... yes?” She was sweating and nervous. There was a hint of _pain_ in her voice. “I am. But I'm fine, really.”

“I'll be judge of that. Where are you hurt?”

“Uh – uh... _uh_.” What was her _problem?_

“I – think this is normal, Daken.” Mystique was lowering her gun: that meant he had missed something.

And then it hit him. He closed his eyes, the mirth in Raze's eyes frankly unbearable, and cursed himself. “Are you on your _period?_ ”

“Hey!” Her voice was outraged. “That was so low! This is supposed to be an important moment!”

“Yes, perhaps if you hadn't disappeared I would have showered you with _flowers_. Come down. Have you cramps? Do you need pads?” He retreated his claws from Raze's wrists, supremely pissed at himself, and walked towards the air duct.

“This is _embarassing_!”

“Not as much as I feel embarassed.” Raze was sniggering. The fucking idiot. Of course _he_ had smelled it when he had locked Maiko in the bathroom. He hadn't expected her to find her way back, though. _I'd forgotten she was like this_ , he had said. Did he really know her? “You didn't think to call me?”

“I thought it was a test!”

“Having you crawl in air ducts while on your first period?”

Silence. “... yes?” She said hesitantly after a moment. “I mean, it's clearly a difficult situation, one one can find oneself into, that requires working with everything one has got at the time.”

Stupid child. She was right, but this had been bad timing indeed. “Come down.” He positioned a table below the air duct.He was more pissed at himself than at her, he mused.

“Is it safe?”

“No, I'm delivering you to them.” He rolled his eyes. “Come on, come down.”

She jumped on the table with effortless grace, grimacing just a little from her cramps, maybe. Yes, now he smelled endometrium too. He should have smelled it earlier, but he had been so worried – this was something he had to think upon as soon as possible; it was getting out of hand. He hadn't thought he would have grown attached to the kid, he had just wanted to give her means to survive. He should have left her in that damn alley.

And then he bit his tongue at the thought. No, he shouldn't have. She had been alone and in need of someone, he knew fully well what that was _like_. The fact he knew he was projecting on her when he had taken her with him didn't change the fact that she had _needed_ someone to take care of her.

And she was so damn lucky that she hadn't been found by someone like Romulus.

_Quod sum eris_ , echoed a memory. It lacked the force it had always had.

_Not at all, Romulus. Not at_ all, he thought with triumph. He helped her get down on the pavement.

“What are you using?” He asked her quietly. She was crimson with embarassment, her long hair a mess, but she still had that glint of satisfaction in her eyes at having been able to reach the room they had been eating in without calling him for help. “You've been very good at coming here.”

She grinned shyly. “Well thank you! And, uhm, I'm using paper. Tons and tons of paper. I think I used all of it?”

He patted her on her head and turned. Mystique was looking at the child with cocked eyebrows and an intrigued expression. He put himself slightly between them; there was no way to hide anything, now. Raze was sitting in _his_ seat, chewing _his_ lamb. His men were keeping the guns pointed at the floor; they saw he was relatively unconcerned by the two gaijin in the room.

Kazuro cleared his throat. “Should we return in position?” At least _he_ wasn't a complete idiot. Daken nodded and they complied.

“They're strange assassins,” Maiko mused, but kept herself behind him. She tapped _safe_ on his back.

Reaching behind with his hand, he signalled _wait_. “They're not. The woman is an acquaintance of mine.”

“Mystique. Pleased to meet you, darling.” Mystique looked at him, a question in her eyes. He donned his best mask.

“Pleased to meet you too. I'm Maiko.”

“So well-mannered.” Mystique sat.

“Courtesy is an armor,” Maiko recited.

Mystique cocked an eyebrow. “It _is_.”

“She's assessing me.”

He felt a pang of pride at Mystique's surprised blink. “I know, Maiko. Let her.”

“And the man?”

Raze waved a hand, his mouth full of Daken's meal. That lamb _had_ been _delicious_ , Daken sighed inwardly. Raze swallowed the meat and grinned. “Just passing by, don't mind me.”

“He changed,” Maiko said, “I saw him. He was a woman. What is he?”

 _What_ are _you?_ “A mutant, Maiko, like me.”

“Uh-uh, of course.”

“We're shapeshifters,” said Raze, and Mystique looked at him, eyebrows shooting up, “Terribly unbecoming. We can be who we want. We can slither inside your home.”

“ _Raze_ –”

“We can become the person you trust the most, the person you love, and trick you and betray you.” He changed into _Daken_ , down to the two piece, every single detail perfect. It was a preposterous insinuation, but Maiko let out a strangled sound of surprise and outrage, her hand tightening on the back of Daken's shirt, a gesture whose implication made him freeze.

And then there were the awaited taps. Today, of _course_ , of all days.

Raze stood from the table, coming to stand behind Mystique: he had heard them, too. They exchanged a glance and Raze nodded slightly at him and then grinned at Maiko, and it was Daken's own signature grin. “Against shapeshifters it's useful to have some choice secret movement which can't be mimicked, much like the ones you two already have. Right, Mystique?” He put his hands on the back of her chair and moved it slightly, Mystique cocking her eyebrows at the movement. Daken put himself in front of Maiko. “Or you can have a set of question and answer, something only you know. Then it's easy to discern a copy from the original.” He turned into the red-haired man again. “So don't worry, dancer, you have weapons against us.”

“What did you call me?”

“A play on your name,” he said quickly, but Daken suspected there was more, “Maiko, right? Dancing child.”

“Uh-uh.”

Daken didn't know if he trusted him, didn't know if he really was his son, but there wasn't time; the soft taps were louder now.

“Incoming!” He shouted, just as Raze bent down on Mystique and the wide windows exploded and shattered, just as the room was invaded by smoke and a thousand crawling figures. Maiko shrieked but stayed behind him, grasping his shirt, and he heard his men beginning the evacuation of the restaurant. He hoped Kazuro would remember to signal.

“Fucking _hate_ ninjas –” he heard a hiss from his right, and out of the corner of his eye he saw what probably was Raze's real aspect, a young man, as blue as Mystique, with wild red hair and ridicolous sideburns. He was setting Mystique on the pavement; the woman had already guns in her hands.

When the smoke dissipated it was clear they were outnumbered.

Didn't he like a challenge.

“ _What took you so long?_ ” He said in Japanese, crossing his arms.

An unmemorable man, dressed in a two piece, emerged from the shadows, arms clasped behind his back. The ninjas didn't move, didn't speak, just waited.

“ _Why, were you waiting for us?_ ” the man said.

“ _But of course. I was wondering when would I have been important enough for you to come and pay me a visit._ ”

“ _Do you know who we are?_ ”

“ _The Hand_.” Behind him, Maiko whined softly. He had prepared her for this, she knew this would have happened eventually.

“ _The Hand, yes_.” Arms still clasped behind his back, the man walked across the room. “ _While you are quite the enigma_... _Akihiro, is it?_ ”

“ _Call me Daken_ ,” he said amiably.

“ _Daken. Who_ are _you?_ ”

“ _I'm but a shadow_.”

“ _You_ are _. Isn't this_ interesting _. We thought you one of the millions scrambling for power in the wake of recent events, but you surprised us with your quick moves. And yet you're so young. And you don't seem to_ exist. _That is_ intriguing.” He turned towards him. “ _The Hand has a proposition for you_.”

“ _I'll hear it_.”

“ _Join forces with the Hand. You're still in need of a strong hand behind your back. The Hand shall back your takeover. The Hand shall give you protection and the means to turn quickly others to your needs. We shall divide the profits over Japan equally. What say you?_ ”

“ _I say you must think me very young. And stupid_.”

“ _Don't fret, child. The Hand recognises talent and knows on what to bet. The Hand knows when there's something precious on the table_.”

“ _I'm sure_.”

Raze snorted. The man's eyes flickered towards him. “ _Your lackey lacks finesse, but you'll do. Join with the Hand, and you shall have everything you want._ ”

“ _A man would be mad to refuse such an offer_.”

“ _Exactly_.”

“ _I think I'll pass_ ,” said Daken serenely, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “ _See, here's the thing: you disgust me. I know your dirty little secret. I know how you've always so_ many. _You use your women as breeding bitches, impregnating them again as soon as they give birth. You bring them back, even. You're a collection of mongrels, fruit of inbred, mindless beasts. I don't really like that. It's positively barbaric, wouldn't you think?_ ” He shook his shirt off his shoulders, revealing his new tattoo beneath. Mystique hissed and Maiko choked on her breath. The man's eyes flickered to it as a moth. “ _You're a relic of a time past, something there's no space for under my rule. You're_ old. _And you'll be eradicated_.”

The man laughed. “ _You're mad_.”

“Au contraire. _Madness presumes lack of control_.” The man's cellphone rang. Daken cocked an eyebrow: it was about time. “ _Please, do answer._ ”

The man did. Daken didn't need to hear what was being said, he knew already what was happening all over the country. And the man's eyes were oh such a sweet confirmation that his plan was coming along nicely indeed.

“ _How?_ ” The man asked, still on the phone. He was talking to Daken.

“ _Didn't you say so yourself? I don't exist. What sources of information can a shadow have? What information can a shadow have filed under the dust, for a rainy day?_ ” It was satisfying to use Romulus' old files to cleanse his home from the filth. “ _Remove what's_ left _of the Hand from Japan before I do. You're not wanted here. Go play inbreeding somewhere else._ ”

The man scoffed, and returned to the phone. “ _Kill him_.”

Daken sighed.

And pushed the pheromones.

He was on the move already, his claws inside the man. “ _So rude_.” He threw him at the first incoming wave, danced on the air, crafted and molded the pheromones at his finest capacity. It had taken years to learn to attune them so. This was being alive, this was dancing and jumping and having worthy opponents, a whirlwind of confusion, being the eye of the storm, not thinking, just acting, twirling, swirling, spinning, his body accustomed to the movements and the control of them as if they were old friends, his only friends.

“ _Can't we make conversation? I'm getting bored here_.”

No response, just silence and attack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw wide-eyed Maiko, a ninja almost at her, and his heart stopped beating for a fraction of second, then a thick blue tail slammed the ninja away.

Raze was crouched low on a table, lips curled in a feral way. “I'm beginning to think you haven't thought this through!”

“Of course I have!” Daken danced, stabbed, danced. “Maiko, take cover as we talked about!”

“Unbelievable!” Raze slammed again the thick tail against two ninjas, “Mystique, could you cover her?” He had began avoiding calling her mother since Maiko had shown up; Daken filed the information away for later. “Do you need a hand with the Hand?” Raze singsonged, bending lower still, claws unsheathing. He had three bone claws coming from the back of his hands.

“That,” Daken said, stabbing the nearest ninja to non-existence, “would be,” jump, avoid, gut, “nice.”

“ _Now_ we're talking,” Raze was in the air already, a grin on his face, and he landed behind him _whooping_ , all mad slashing and a frankly confusing usage of all kinds of appendages. He had definitely more shapeshifting abilities than Mystique. “Stop _looking_ at me, I've got your six!”

It got exhilarating from then on, a different kind of exhilarating from when he had fought alongside Laura. Raze was _chatty_ when he fought, an enthusiastic kid who enjoyed himself greatly in the act, a sort of primeval excitement boiling in his blood. Was it truly Daken's own blood?

“Oh, I love that trick where they don't see you!”

“Didn't I teach you?”

“I don't manipulate pheromones!”

“Pity.”

“I know! But heyyy, look at this –” His arms became large, massive razor-like things with which he swiped away a good number of ninjas.

 _Raze_. Of course. Could he have been more obvious and noisy?

“Do you like them?”

“They're convenient.”

“They're freaking amazing, that's what they are – _down!_ ” Daken crouched, a razor swishing just an inch above his head, cutting in half a ninja near Mystique and Maiko. The woman was damn impressed with her son, that was for sure, guns steady in her hands. “Dancer, take cover!”

Dancer again. Daken was beginning to worry about the moniker. “Under that table, now!” Daken snapped at Maiko. She was frozen in place, hiding behind Mystique but not moving.

“Obey your _otousan_ , dancer!” Raze shouted and Maiko started, wide-eyed – a motion he almost mimicked but there wasn't time to be shocked – and obeyed. He stared at her for a second too long – was she really thinking – did she _really_ – and Raze stabbed a ninja which had been a few inches from him. Daken hadn't even _noticed_ him. “Daydream later.”

Daken shook himself and twirled up again, ignoring the pain on his side and not thinking for now, focusing on the rest of the Hand.

“Cheer up, you're handling it admirably!”

“What?” Daken snapped, clawing the nearest ninja.

“All this parental stuff. Hey, I know you're having a major freakout in there!”

“I'm _not_ ,” annoyed, he jumped at a ninja, snapped his neck, went at the next, “having a freakout!”

“Suuuuure –”

Fucking annoying kid. Yes, he was his son for sure.

They fought for a while still, but the ninjas were getting less and less, the occasional shouts of _I adore your tattoo_ and _what would you do without me_ and _this is freaking funny_ – had he said _freaking_ again he would have stabbed him – and _now this is what I call bonding time_ setting the rhythm. Then they were the only ones standing and Raze sighed happily, collapsing on the ground.

“That was freak–”

“ _Don't_.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Your taste in clothes is appalling.” Daken countered, looking at his white jacket, open on the chest, and the horrifying loincloth – which would have been cringeworthy on its own – _added_ to the trousers.

“Clearly, the fashion genes are recessive.”

Daken snorted, the motion sending a jolt of pain to his side, and grunted, bending over. He set a hand over the open wound.

Mystique was helping Maiko out from under the table; the kid was pale and wide-eyed, her gaze drawn to him immediately. “You're _hurt!_ ”

“Mh-mh. Nothing to worry about,” he winked at her. He was shivering, that he knew. And Mystique was looking at him, taking a mental note of this new weakness of his, no doubt about it.

“You're not healing,” she said a moment later, sure enough.

“Give it a moment.” Superficial wounds healed quickly, but deeper wounds were a problem. Once established his rule he had to find a genetician. He had been reviewing many curricula already, but didn't want to approach anyone till his control over the country was secure. He had brought this upon himself with his weakness for those drugs, he would _fix_ this.

He wouldn't. If Raze's words were true –

It would take so _little_ to kill him for real. He would have to change his fighting style a bit, take less risks, even when calculated ones.

But he had died at the school, and yet _had_ managed to come back. He had died at Weapon X, and _had_ come back. No need to worry, not now. He filed the thought away.

Maiko was at his side, studying the wound. “It's closing, but it's so _slow!_ ” She touched his skin gingerly. He shut his eyes, overwhelmed by the worry in her eyes. She wasn't _pretending_ , she wasn't –

“Hey, dancer, he's too tough to be brought down by this,” Raze said softly. Startled, Daken opened his eyes again, in time to see Maiko whip her head towards Raze.

“Who _are_ you?”

“I think this one's _mine_ , Mystique.” Grateful for the distraction, he cocked an eyebrow at the woman. “He's certainly as annoying as me.”

Maiko looked up at him, shock in her eyes. “Yours?”

“You are too, dancer. Don't you ever doubt it.” Maiko looked again at Raze, wide-eyed, and then from him to Daken, doubt and fear on her features. There was a question in her eyes and he didn't know how to answer. “He's freaking _slow_ , though. Give him time.”

Maiko giggled and he felt profoundly offended and... _glad_ he hadn't to answer yet. He didn't know what to say. Why were words failing him now?

“You're his son? You have a son?”

Mystique cleared her throat. “Provided he isn't lying.”

“Why, what else do you need?” Raze said. “I'm not Logan's, whose else could I be?”

Mystique seemed to hesitate for a moment and he answered in her stead. “We're going to wait till you are born. The one she carries now could be Victor's.”

The name brought a change in Raze's scent and demeanor; he froze, lips curling in a snarl, teeth bared, eyes cold. “That _animal_ isn't my father.”

That had him and Mystique freeze; while Maiko, confused, asked, “What does it mean _wait till you are born?_ Is it an English saying?”

“Nah,” Raze said cheerfully – falsely cheerful now. It was a façade, clear as day; probably even Maiko could see it. “I'm from the future, you see. I'm not born yet. I'm there,” he pointed at Mystique's belly.

“Oh –”

Mystique had her hand over her belly, “What did Victor –”

“He's _dead_.” Raze stood up, on his face a feral expression that couldn't even begin to be compared to the one he had worn while talking about Logan. This was hate, pure and simple. But Mystique had said he had called him _uncle_ Victor – just to gain his trust then? What had Victor _done_ to him? “So. I'd always wondered _how_ you managed to take control in so little time,” he changed the subject, and nudged the Hand's lackey's side with a foot. Daken recognised fully well the intention not to _talk_. He felt his blood run cold. “I suppose single-handedly driving the Hand out of Japan does the trick.”

“Isn't this a spoiler?” He respected Raze's will and followed his lead. But he was feeling something else, something cold and primeval and furious. He wanted to rip Victor Creed _apart_.

“Let's not get _technical_.”

“Victor –” tried Mystique again.

“How did you do it, by the way?” Raze sighed, cutting off his mother, “How did you know where their sanctuaries were?”

“I used an old source.” And then he had burnt everything else to the ground. What a waste, his practical mind had sighed. What a _satisfaction_.

“It must have been pretty old.”

“Terribly.”

“Well let's leave you to the spotlight, mh?” Raze grinned at him. “Today's important.”

“Is it?”

“Terribly.” Raze motioned to Mystique. “Shall we, mother?”

“I suppose.” Mystique's gaze flickered towards him, towards Maiko. Daken put himself between them. Fuck _subtlety_. “I'll contact you soon, Daken.”

“Sure.”

Raze was beside him. “I suppose I shouldn't tell you, but – don't be stubborn.”

Daken cocked an eyebrow. “About what?”

“About _everything_. Damn, I can't change anything, but at least – ah, fuck it. Whatever.” Raze motioned towards him, then caught himself. “Not yet, uh?” He proffered his hand instead of whatever else he had been about to do. “I suppose you'll see me soon.”

“I suppose.” He shook hands with his supposed son from the future. It almost seemed as if he was saying goodbye for good. He was set on coming back to his time now, wasn't he? Understanding their trip had been pointless must have scarred him badly. Daken asked himself what this future of his would have brought, whether it really was that terrible. What had happened to him, what had happened to Daken himself. Whether he really would have died, and how.

But this was something so far in the future he couldn't worry about that now. He had all the time in the world to find a solution.

And no time for that now, no time for brooding;  _ this _ was now, this was the  _ present _ , this was the culmination of something he was building, he would have built, he had worked hard on.

The proof he could create too.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Next:_ All right. He had survived fifty years with Romulus, he had been battered and bruised and killed and tortured and this: _this_ was _nothing_.
> 
> About the Hand: the breeding process has been described by Aaron in Wolverine v 4 #13.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

“And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't;  
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road.  
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope:  
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat.  
'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me.  
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me...  
Well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to me.”

Florence + the Machine – _Shake it out_

 

 

Two months later, he left Maiko home with some guards and went on a supposed walk, Kazuro in tow.

Kazuro was the first assassin who had been sent to take him down, and for a while he had had the habit to tell to every single new assassin sent the story of how he had been beaten to the ground. To an extent, he had been an experiment; it had been in that moment, when Daken had looked down at him and almost went for the killing blow, that he had thought that loyalty could be earned by playing merciful god. By then he had already realised that if he really was set on taking over the crime empire of an entire _nation_ , he would have needed trusted lieutenants, whatever that could mean. He had kept the man close and his gambit had payed: have a reputation for taking under his wings the assassins that kept coming at him instead of killing them had earned him a weird sort of _respect_ as he advanced; and the blind fools that had thought that that meant he was only an idiot who could have been easily betrayed had been sent their men in separate packages: one for the torso, one for the limbs, one for the head. After the fourth attempted betrayal, they had stopped. Of course, they wouldn't have even _tried_ if they had known he was a living lie-detector.

And Raze had been right; after rumors about what he had done to the Hand had spread, the remaining Yakuza families had fallen easily. Which had been his gamble since the beginning.

And now he was about to _see_ Raze. When he had seen he was about to go out, Kazuro had insisted to accompany him; he knew fully well Daken was perfectly capable of taking down groups of people, but he also insisted on _appearances_. Japanese people and _appearances_. It was mildly annoying, but it suited his purpose well.

That didn't mean, absolutely, that he would have trusted the man to enter the hotel with him; he would have had to wait outside.

Kazuro's company was enjoyable; the man only spoke if spoken to. That meant he had some time for himself, finally: time to enjoy a bit of silence. Maiko's puberty had hit, and she had such _normal_ preoccupations, like her _fear_ at beginning school. He had forged her a foolproof brand new identity, because for her to go wherever _she_ wanted in the world she had to exist officially, to have an official education and papers. He had, of course, given her a choice: he had asked her if she preferred that or the shadows, a more hidden education; she had chosen and she would have had to stick with that.

He was glad she had chosen that. It meant the fighting and language lessons took away just a few hours a day, it meant the house would have been empty in the morning and for a good part of the afternoon, it meant he could have had more time to himself and for the paperworks – running an empire _was_ tiring – and more importantly, it meant that never again would she have walked in on him. That had been traumatising. And scarring. For _both_ of them; that had been a day to remember, the day he had understood he cared about her _feelings_. Truly embarassing, in a way.

He had scared her. He had _scarred_ her. She had never truly seen him as a sexual being, he had realised; at first she had seen him as her savior, perhaps as the stupid gullible man who was using his own time to teach her not to die in this world; then, somewhere, somehow, Daken was still trying to understand _why_ , he had shifted in her mind towards a sort of paternal figure, an asexual entity. She knew he killed people, she had _seen_ him kill people, and that wasn't a problem; she knew he was a criminal, she knew what he was doing, she wasn't stupid, she understood that he run _every_ kind of activity, and that wasn't a problem; but somehow the fact he could have had a sexual life had shocked her.

It didn't help the fact that she had walked in on a scene that _hadn't been_ caring or tender. His fault, too; he wasn't accustomed to share a house with someone, but common courtesy would have requested to at least _knock_. All his venom had been lost, though, at seeing her face. In retrospect it was obvious: seeing him had stirred some unpleasant memory. She had shut herself in her room, sobbing _endlessly_. The sobs had echoed throughout the house and had made his stomach _churn_. He had ended up sending the few guards away and trying to calm her down from behind her closed door. He could have just let her calm her down on her own and wait for her to come outside and ignore the thing entirely but somehow those sobs had made him itch. He had _wanted_ to reassure her.

Because it was obvious what she had thought he was doing when she had seen him. Given what she had been through herself, it mustn't have been a reassuring sight. And even if that was something he resorted to sometimes, he always used the pheromones to ease it and damn, that hadn't been the case anyway.

So he had ended up sitting with his back against her door and talking very quietly about different people enjoying different things in sex, that some people liked to experience or inflict pain, that the man she had seen had been willing, and so on and so forth. That had been a gross oversimplification of his own needs, but she hadn't certainly needed to be further traumatised; and after a while she had calmed down.

Certainly not something he had _ever_ envisioned himself doing. All because he didn't trust her with anyone and had wanted to keep a close eye on her. When had he begun caring for the girl? He had only wanted to take her off the street for a while and here she was, sharing a _house_ with him. Almost as if – probably in her mind it was a sort of family, even. What had he _done?_ It was utterly ridicolous. This wasn't him at all.

Was he – damn him, he _wasn't_ recreating a sort of familial environment with the characteristics he would have wanted, was he? That was the most ridicolous fucked up thing he could have ever done. That was in the realm of gloriously deranged insanity. No, _no_ , that _wasn't_ what he was doing. Was it?

Oh god, it was. It _was_.

Had he been alone, had he been in his own room, he could have even had a fit of hysterical laughter at the realization. But they had reached the hotel and he had to calm down for this. He had to be in control for this. He motioned to Kazuro to wait outside.

Mystique was waiting in one of the best suites, of course, and she had returned to her glorious blue self. She had him come in and he stood in the hallway, feeling frozen on spot. This was the moment of truth, wasn't it? He felt as if having to pass one of Romulus' tests.

“Where's Raze?” He asked to avoid thinking for a moment. Stalling. He was _stalling._ He had survived unspeakable things and he was _stalling_. And the question was supremely idiotic, because of course Mystique pretended not to understand and simply motioned to the living room.

“No, Mystique, the _adult_ Raze. Where is he?”

She sobered. “He's gone. He walked straight into the Jean Grey School and asked to be sent back. I couldn't stop him.”

“You knew he would have done it. You knew as soon as he said those things about it being all pointless.”

“Yes. I still hoped he would have given me something to work on.” Daken didn't believe for a _second_ that she would have told him, had Raze said something, but he nodded at her, pretending to believe her. Mystique motioned towards the living room again. “Come on.”

Taking a deep breath, he followed her. In the living room was a crib, and in the crib was a baby.

And he was _blue_.

All right. He had survived fifty years with Romulus, he had been battered and bruised and killed and tortured and this: _this_ was _nothing_.

Mystique sat on a couch as he approached the crib, put his hands on the borders and inhaled deeply. Mystique's scent was clearly noticeable; he parsed it from the scent emanating from the baby. He recognised the parts of his scent that had Mystique's print and parsed it from the rest; what was left was a trail of something that he knew intimately. He knew it, because he smelled it everyday.

“... Daken?”

This wasn't something that could have been changed somehow, not at this young age. He had clung to the thought that Raze had been altering his own scent on purpose, but the baby couldn't have done something like that.

“Well?”

Taking a breath, Daken realized he was gripping madly the borders of the crib, his knuckles white. This wasn't possible; this wasn't happening, this was ridicolous. Raising his head to look at Mystique, he signed his death sentence. “Mine.”

Mystique exhaled. “Well. He did say that, didn't he?”

“He did.” Daken looked down again. He was so little and blue and he was _his_. This was ridicolous. He wasn't a parent. He had never been _meant_ to be a parent. There were obligations to be met, a certain kind of emotional stability he knew he lacked. As if noticing he was being watched, the child opened his eyes. They glowed yellow like his mother's. He shifted a bit, his little legs moving away the covers; why was he naked under them? The child kicked the covers away, wailing. Something caught Daken's eyes and he leaned down to watch more closely. And then he froze. _That_ was why he was naked under the covers: to make Daken _see._

“ _Mystique,_ ” came out strangled from his mouth.

“Yes. I know.”

“It's...”

“Yes, that's the pronoun I'm using as of yet. Until it decides. I suppose it will settle for male.”

“He was a woman for a good part of our conversation.”

“I _know_ , Daken.” Mystique seemed the epitome of composure and he felt as if he was about to have a panic attack. He had more self-control than this, he was used to keeping it together under the most stressful circumstances but _this_ – Well, she _had_ had much more time than him to come to terms with the fact that her son was a hermaphrodite. Of course, with shapeshifters gender wasn't an issue. They could change it at will; perhaps to her it wasn't an inherent problem. But they still had a default biological sex, and this child hadn't. “There's much I don't know about him, I realised. But that's the thing with children anyway; I just happened to meet him before he was born. I'll take care of him. _Please_ , control your pheromones.”

Daken started; he was pumping the room with a mixture of them, the air heavy and unbreathable. Mystique wasn't affected because she probably had modified something in her body when she had noticed; maybe she had restricted her pores, she had let a filter grow inside her trachea. But the child? He kept them in check with an effort – he felt embarassed at his lack of control – and stared down at him – her – it. It appeared unconcerned.

“He's not affected by them,” he said out loud. And he was able to notice when they were used, he recalled.

“Well, that's convenient.” He heard her cross her legs.

It was so tiny and signed already, from his skin color, from his mutation, from his sex. It would have been in constant danger.

In danger.

“Victor,” Daken said, “Did he say what he meant about Victor?”

“No.”

“He said he was an animal. Mystique, Victor _hurt_ him.”

“There's a high chance that's what he meant, but he refused to elaborate.” Daken looked up at her; she had a grim expression. “I'll take care of Victor, Daken. We're retreating to Madripoor and I'm closing its borders to him. He won't lay a foot on the island.”

“That won't be enough.”

“I'm not going to kill him, Daken. He's a valuable ally.”

“He'll hurt my _son_ ,” Daken snapped. Mystique cocked her eyebrows at him and he realised what he had said. So much for subtlety. Was he that much a slave to such instincts? He laid eyes on a wee baby and suddely he was filled with parental concern? That was so primitive.

“If you happen to kill Victor, and it could happen if he decides to take Japan back and comes here, I won't say a thing. But you won't, Daken, and you know that. Because something happened to Raze, and if truly nothing can be changed, everything you'll do won't change anything.”

She was right, wasn't she? Daken returned his gaze to the baby, hands gripping the borders of the crib. That didn't mean he wouldn't have tried. Victor would have had to kill him before he let him lay insomuch as a _finger_ on him.

There was something visceral about this. He wasn't sure he liked what it was doing to him. He had always prized himself on his self-control, but this was different, this was primal. The animal roaring for the survival of its own genes. He _wasn't_ an animal.

“Do you want to hold it?”

“ _What?_ ” Daken whipped his head towards her: she was watching him as if he were an insect, he thought. She was calculating. Never forget that she was like him, that she played a long, _long_ game, that she worked towards a bigger purpose, a stupid mutant utopia, and would have used every weapon available. Yes, maybe even her own son. Why not? She had _abandoned_ two of her children. What was her game? Did she want him to have an imprinting on the child? Did she want to use him for her purpose?

Was he going to let her do it?

“You're thinking too much.” Mystique stood up gracefully, reached the crib and took the child in her arms, then proffered it at him. “Here.”

“I –”

“It won't _bite_ you.” And she was offering it to him like a damn _sacrifice_.

Hesitantly, he reached out; she put it in his arms gently. “Hold the head.”

“I know how to hold a child, Mystique.” He carefully put a hand behind its neck, felt the short thin hair with his fingers. It was so _small_. Oh, this wasn't happening. He wasn't fit for this. He wasn't worthy of this. He was having problems adjusting to Maiko's presence and she was a big girl, self-sufficient enough, but this, a kid – and had he just thought of Maiko as if she were his?

It was drooling all over his shirt, big yellow eyes glowing in the dim light, looking curiously up at him. Daken realised he was leaning on the crib for support, his knees made of jelly, his legs _shaking_. It emitted a sound suddenly and moved a bit, searching a better position. He eased the motion.

“You're a natural,” Mystique said. What was her game, what was her damn game? “What do you want to do?”

He managed to avert his eyes from the child to look at her. What would have he done to see a reflection of his face right now. He felt he had no control over his muscles. “What do you mean?”

“The child. You're his father. What do you want to do?”

It emitted a sound again, uncomfortable, and on instinct he began rocking it in his arms. He was rocking his child in his arms and it felt so _safe_. He was falling for the most cliched trick in the history of humankind, the awareness of mortality, the urge towards having a legacy.

 _NO_. He bit hard his tongue to regain a semblance of self-control against this _mistress_ of manipulation and tried to at least appear collected. “I had assumed you would have disappeared with him.”

“If that's what you want, I can do it.”

Wouldn't have it been much easier? Wouldn't have it been, to pretend this wasn't happening, to pretend the only worry he could have had would have had to do with the income or whether there was some idiot who thought they could try and wrestle power from him or whether some superhero had smelled something or whether Maiko was safe?

He had taken that road already and there was no way to come back now. He was doomed, he had been since he had decided to take Maiko with him, since he had opened his eyes in the school's lawn, since the boy had taken his hands and had asked for nothing in return.

And this was his own _blood_. There had been a time when he had blamed Logan for the same thing; was he really going to be a hypocrite?

“I could see him every once in a while,” he said, “Just to be sure. He needs to establish me as a trustworthy figure if ever Victor really tries to do something to him and you're not available.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

Was it? Was he playing right into her hands like an amateur? Fifty years of refined training and _this_ would have been his demise?

“We're going to be neighbors, Daken, I didn't want to turn this into a bloody war.”

Right. They would have ended up being close indeed. “Are you going to open a mutant refugee camp just in front of my home?”

She laughed. It wasn't mockery, but real amusement at his obvious joke. Of course she wouldn't have said. “I won't certainly share my plans with you.”

“That would be inconsiderate.”

“We'll work this out. Here, give it back.”

He realised he didn't want to give it back, that he wanted to hold him still. _Sentiment_. But Mystique was the mother and he had no rights over the child; she had had no obligation whatsoever to tell him, but she had.

What was her game? Did she want to bring Daken in on her political games?

Mystique was rocking the child in her arms. “Your girl,” she said suddenly.

Daken stilled, eyes on the child. “What about her?” He said calmly.

“Who is she?”

“Just a stray I brought home.”

She emitted an amused sound, as if she had thought _you can certainly come up with a better lie than that_. But it would have been pointless: she had seen how he had reacted when he had thought Maiko had been hurt. “You're grooming her.”

He found himself baring his teeth. “I dislike that word.”

She nodded, as if he had just confirmed something. He probably had; he still didn't know if she knew about Romulus. “I won't harm her, Daken. I won't use her. I won't say a word about her to anyone.”

In exchange for what? He trained his gaze on her, didn't answer. He waited.

She looked up at him. “I mean it. If I stay out of your plans and you stay out of mine, there's no reason for her to be caught up in the middle.”

Ah, there. What a _subtle_ threat.

“I care not for your plans, Mystique.”

“Neither do I for yours. Like I said, we're going to be neighbors, and we're going to be civil about it. Especially given this one.” She motioned with her chin towards the child.

Oh, what an _artist_. What a refined intellect. He found himself slightly aroused.

No need to mix business and pleasure, not with her. She would have burned him alive. Sometimes one had to recognise a superior mind.

“And I understand the need to settle down for a while,” she added.

“I'm not settling down,” he bristled. She merely hummed.

“But I wanted to warn you, Daken. I like you.” Daken cocked an eyebrow at that. “You'll hurt her. You'll use her. And she will end up hating you.”

“I won't use her,” he said, he promised to himself. _I won't_. He would have given her the means to accomplish whatever she wanted and he would have supported her, he wouldn't have mingled her with his business unless  explicitly asked, he wouldn't have forced anything on her. He wouldn't have been her Romulus.

“That's a noble intent. I wish you would maintain it.” She wasn't mocking him. Strange as it was, but she was honest, at least in this. He couldn't read it on her, she was too good, but could surmise it from what he knew of her relationships with her children.

They parted like this, Mystique promising to contact him soon, and he left the hotel feeling overwhelmed by what had happened. It had been a confirmation of something he already knew, something he had pushed at the back of his mind since he had met Raze in that restaurant, unwilling to commit himself to such a strange thing till he was sure, till he smelled his own scent on the baby.

But now it was real. Over the course of a few months he had passed from not having anything, from floating in an endless void, to having... _something_ , perhaps. And all had begun when he had admitted to himself how tightly he was tied to Logan. It had been a strange sequence of events. The time at the school had been so strange, almost a ridicolous dream at times. He couldn't lie to himself; he knew the kid would have gone mad from everything that was he seeing in his dreams, and later on in his waking moments, hadn't it been for Quentin. Oh, yes, the other kids had done something, but the boy had helped him for no other reason that he had looked at him and seen past everything. And he had _respected_ his will. He hadn't even been scared of him when he had come back, he had navigated around everything Daken had thrown at him to push him away, had called bullshit when he had seen it. The boy knew things about him that had never left his mouth, that he had managed to avoid telling Logan. Confessions that for Hiro had been comforting, that had permitted him to live on; and he hadn't wanted _anything_. At all. He hadn't taken _advantage_ of him. He could have. Daken _would_ have, in his stead. But he _hadn't_. He  had shown him that not everything had to be a transaction, that sometimes giving up and trust didn't come with betrayal. And that scared him. That had scarred him. He had never _had_ something so... so _clean._ Even with the ones he had found himself strangely attached to – Lester, Johnny, Donna, even Laura – those had been games. Those had started as games of push and pull on his part and would have never been anything else. More and more he found himself aching for contact; sometimes he felt the need for a ghost of a touch on his palm –

He would have survived this. He was a survivor, wasn't he? It was a thing in which he had excelled, all these years. It wasn't  his fault that he was molded to respond to certain stimuli like a dog. It had taken time to admit it to himself, but he wasn't what Romulus had instilled in him, he was more than that, and he would have controlled himself.

At home he left Kazuro outside with the other guards and found Maiko in the kitchen, intent on setting plates on the table. He stood in the shadows for a moment, watching her dance around with a focused expression on her face, and felt a pang of something in his chest. He was glad he had taken her from the street that night. It had been a strange moment of self-affirmation, but it had changed along the way, the kid a constant presence now.

Such _sappy_ thoughts.  Oh, had he seen him, Logan would have had a fit and would have had big puppy eyes, thinking him reformed or something on those lines. He wasn't changed, he had just taken a decision and flown with it, changed on his own right and not towards a direction someone _else_ had wanted him to go.

She noticed him and started, and then grinned. “You scared me!”

“Sorry.” He walked into the kitchen, his gaze trailing over the bowls. “Have you practiced that jump?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Will you show me later?”

She nodded, placing chopstiks over the table. He realised it was covered with japanese food. “And where does this come from?”

“I cooked.”

“You _cooked?_ ” His eyebrows shot up. “Oh my.” He reached the table and glanced around. He had no idea whether the food was edible. He hadn't eaten japanese in _years_ , a sort of protest against his upbringing. He had occasionally had sushi, when it had become the new vogue. But on the table was more traditional food.

“And I asked Hiroshi-san to buy mochi.”

She had asked a professional assassin to go buy her traditional sweets. “The guards are here for your protection, not to be your errand boys.” They _did_ have a soft spot for her. Go figure. Maybe it was because they had seen what had _happened_ to the first and only idiot who had tried to harm her to get at him. Some of them had thrown up, he recalled. Not Maiko, though; she was made of sterner stuff. She had to, given what she had been through.

“I know, sorry.” She reached for a box and proffered it at him.

“I dislike sweets.”

She made such a face that he reached inside the box and caught a mochi. It was far too sweet for his taste, but he swallowed it down. It could have been something he had eaten as a child, now that he thought about it.

“You don't like it,” she said, her lips curved down.

“I warned you.”

“Chocolate. Do you like chocolate?”

What had gotten into her? He indulged her. “Dark chocolate. Extra dark, a hundred percent cocoa.” She nodded as if she was taking mental note. Which was entirely possible. “What's the occasion, anyway? Why have you cooked?” It wasn't some traditional festival, was it?

“It's my birthday.”

He froze, eyes on her. He hadn't known that. He hadn't even asked. He had told her what her birth date would have been on the new legal documents he had procured her, but he hadn't thought to ask. This was something children deemed important, wasn't it?

“I didn't know.”

She shrugged. “That's all right. You're so busy. And it's been years since I last celebrated anyway.” She sat. “Can we eat? I don't know if it will be good, but I tried.”

“I'm sure it's edible.” He sat down.

It was, thankfully. He didn't remember if it was supposed to taste the way it tasted, but at least he was sure it wouldn't have brought upon them food poisoning.

“When is your birthday?” She asked suddenly, chopsticks hovering over her kushiyaki, if he wasn't mistaken.

“I don't know.”

She made an outraged face.

“Oh, all right. Let me think.” Resting his chin on his hands, he tried to recall when he had been told by Akihira when he had been found. “Between the end of july and the beginning of august. I think. I'm not sure.” He resumed eating.

Maiko didn't, and kept looking at him, her expression still outraged. “You don't know when you are born?”

“Between the end of july and the beginning of august.” What was the problem? “That's an acceptable window of time.”

“I thought it was in autumn.”

“Mh?” He arched an eyebrow. “Ah! Because of Akihiro?”

She nodded.

“Aki isn't even _autumn_ , you know. It's another kanji. It's _bright_ , I think.” He recalled the kanji on Akihira's tomb. It stood to reason that the first kanji of their names was to be the same. “Yes, it's _bright_.”

Akihiro. Bright and magnificent. Strange, the things one forgets.

She was fidgetting. “But can't you find out when you are born?”

“Why?” He had never cared about something like that. He had never been allowed to care about something like that. That would have tied him too close to a domesticity that Romulus wouldn't have ever allowed. And he had never wanted to know, not really. His birth date had first represented the moment his mother had abandoned him and then, later, courtesy of Romulus, the moment his mother had been murdered by his father.

It was still the moment his mother had been murdered. He didn't _want_ to know the date.

“I just thought it would have been nice to know. You know, for –” she fidgetted with her chopsticks. “Because.” She wasn't looking at him; he stilled, the words that were caught in her throat obvious. “Because I have no one and you saved me and you are taking care of me and I don't understand and and and I wanted to do something nice,” she said quickly.

“I didn't do it to have something in return from you,” he said in autopilot. He felt panicked. “I don't want anything in return. You just. _Eat._ ” He retreated to the food. “This is good. Will you tell me the recipe?” Yes, had he asked it of something a little bit more complicated than a simple yakizakana it could have been a believable tactic.

“But.” She was confused. She was as confused as he would have been in her stead. As he _had been._ As _Hiro_ had been. Hiro hadn't understood why would have someone wanted to befriend him. People didn't do these things. People didn't care. People wanted self-affirmation in their acts of small kindness, even when they protested that wasn't true. That was a fundamental truth. Even _Johnny_ had disappointed him, had wanted to _change_ him. Ah, Johnny, sweet _heroic_ Johnny. For all his protests, he had been like everyone else. And he was damn _sick_ of it. People always wanted something.

 _No. Quentin didn't._ “Is it so important for you?”

“I wanted to do something nice,” she repeated, voice little. “To thank you.”

“I don't –” Daken shook his head. “My biological father should remember, but we don't talk.” More like he had no intention to talk to him, at least for now. He still had to come to terms with certain things. At least Logan was keeping his promise, wasn't looking for him. He had come to Japan lately to see his adoptive daughter and his ninja lover; Daken had had him followed, but he hadn't seemed to know that Daken was there. He was pretty sure Logan knew there had been a change of power, though. But Daken was keeping the criminal activities as clean and organised as they could be, he had left a chain of scapegoats for good measure, and Logan had never stuck his nose into this kind of thing unless irked for some reason anyway. “I suppose I could ask my –” he trailed off. What was Laura anyway? Someone he shared genetic traits with?

“Mother?” Maiko tried to guess.

“My mother is dead.”

“I'm sorry.” And bless her, she was. She wasn't lying. He wasn't so naive as to think that she wasn't clutching to him because he provided protection and a home, but she also _cared_. He could do this little thing for her, couldn't he?

“I'll ask Laura to ask my biological father,” he said smoothly, waiting for her to ask who Laura was.

“Who's Laura?”

“I suppose you could define her –” _my father's clone. Ah_. Way to scare a child. “I suppose she could be my sister.”

Torn between his usage of _could_ – he could see the question in her eyes – and the exciting news he had a sister, it was obvious what she would have chosen.

“You have a _sister?_ ” She had widened her eyes. _Had he_ a sister? Was Laura his sister? What was this sudden need for _labels_? He had mocked Reed about it, and yet here he was, considering. He had a child and Maiko and maybe even a sister, yes. What was Laura up to these days, anyway?

“Sort of. It's a bit complicated. But yes.”

There was a hunger in her eyes, a hunger for something more. She ached for belonging. She needed a family. He wasn't fit for this. Maybe a young, female figure – “Do you want to meet her?”

Her eyes went wider still and she stilled, a hand coming to her mouth. “You want me to meet your sister?”

“Only if you want to. She's a bit older than you.” Well, but _would_ have Laura wanted to have something to do with him? Have some sappy heart to heart in the most unlikely places was one thing, but actually reach for her and ask her whether she wanted to come and meet his – his what? His sort-of-protegée? But Maiko would have needed a female figure. He could push on this when talking to Laura: she had obvious maternal instincts. But she would have told this to Logan immediately. And then who would have stopped the old man from barging into his business? Could he manage to have Laura come and have her promise not to talk to Logan about this? Or maybe meet somewhere else? Maybe he could meet her a few times first, establish a routine. Just for Maiko, of course, it wasn't as if he missed Laura or anything like that. It could have worked, yes. And he needed to establish other ties to help with Raze too; he would have presented this to Mystique, no objections possible. He wasn't going to have his child in her hands only, he would have established a safety net; Laura would have been more than capable for the job, and probably willing, too. The only problem was whether she would have kept quiet about it; he wasn't worried about the rest, it would have been impossible for Laura to know he controlled crime in Japan, after all: his cover was more than solid. But she would have had to swear  she wouldn't have talked about Maiko or Raze to anyone, especially not Logan. They were _his_ business. Maiko wasn't even a mutant; her powers would have manifested already if she had been. She was only human and she was too fragile, he didn't want her to end up entangled with mutant dramas. He could protect her from crime lords and the such, not from lunatic supervillains who could have thought to hit Logan through _Daken's_ own– he stopped that thought right there, the word too scary.

Maiko was looking at him with glassy eyes and he shook himself from his thoughts. “I don't know if she would come, but I can try.” He shrugged. “I can't promise you anything.”

She burst out crying suddenly, with loud, broken sobs. He was on his feet already, cursing himself for not noticing this would have been overwhelming for her. He always knew what to say, he always knew when to push and when to retreat, but he was making such a damn _mess_ of this. Of course she was confused, she had expressed confusion at his taking care of her already and now he had mentioned meeting what she _thought_ was his family. Well Laura _was_ his family, maybe. She was bearable. She was interesting to talk to.

Maiko was still crying, her head lowered, her hands gripping her thighs, and he hovered beside her, uncertain on what to do. “Nakanaide,” he begged her. “Yamete kudasai. Nakanaide.” He didn't know how to handle a crying child. He knew how to handle a crying adult, not a crying child. He sent soothing pheromones. “ _I'm sorry I upset you. Don't cry, please. I –_ ” _don't know what to do, I don't_ know _if I can make this work._ “ _I didn't want to upset you. I'm sorry. Please stop crying._ ”

Help _me. I can learn, damn it. I'm great at learning, it can't be that difficult._

She hiccuped and turned in her seat and hugged him fiercely, sobbing, throwing her arms around his waist, and _oh of course_ , he thought, frozen, staring down at her head, _children love hugs_ , and the last time _Daken_ had hugged someone without _ulterior_ motives had been in Herat, but he wouldn't have let Romulus soil this too, and _burn in hell, Romulus,_ he thought, and gingerly, wondering if he was doing this right, wondering if it would have been enough, he wrapped his arms around Maiko.

 

 

“And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back,  
So shake him off.”

Florence + the Machine – _Shake it out_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming next installment:  
> \- a jump a few years in the future. And then another. And another.  
> \- a POV that isn't Daken's (but a POV I've used already)  
> \- delicate balance between mutants and humans  
> \- L'oiseau de feu  
> \- distressed Papa Wolf Daken (you know you want it)  
> \- an apocalypse is coming  
> \- Sabretooth is certainly trying hard to wrestle the title of bastard from Romulus  
> \- Some Important Deaths  
> \- Laura, because we love sibling love  
> \- Alas, it's difficult to be a father  
> \- is this obsession or what else?  
> All this and more coming soon _ **ish**_ in _We will never be afraid again_ , the penultimate three-chaptered installment of _**We shall burn**_ ^-^


End file.
